The New Jewish School in Music (1908-1938) as Part of the Jewish Cultural Renaissance
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Book Talk
Admission: Free Registration is required. |
The history of the “New Jewish School of Music” began when several music students from the St. Petersburg Conservatory founded the Society for Jewish Folk Music in St. Petersburg in 1908. The end of this movement came with the 1938 invasion of Austria by Germany and the dissolution of the Viennese Society for the Promotion of Jewish Music that same year. The fascinating and dramatic history of the New Jewish School is the subject of From St. Petersburg to Vienna: The New Jewish School in Music (1908-1938) As Part of the Jewish Cultural Renaissance by Jascha Nemtsov. While many other national "schools" of music—such as the Russian, Czech, and Hungarian—were able to develop freely and establish themselves in an environment of cultural transparency, the Jewish school was violently suppressed. From St. Petersburg to Vienna was first published in 2004 in German, focusing on the reconstruction of the Jewish school’s historical development in Russia and, after 1917, increasingly in other Eastern and Central European countries.
Join YIVO for a discussion with Nemtsov about this recently-revised and translated edition of the book, led by YIVO Director of Public Programs Alex Weiser.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
About the Participants
Jascha Nemtsov is a pianist and musicologist. He was born in Magadan (Siberia) in 1963 and studied at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. Since 2013, he has a full tenure position as Professor for History of Jewish Music at the Liszt University of Music in Weimar. His academic work focuses on Jewish music and Jewish composers. In 2024, his textbook “Jewish Music: Introduction” was published, the first publication of its kind in the world. As a pianist, Nemtsov performs internationally and has recorded more than 40 CDs to date, including numerous premiere recordings of works by rediscovered persecuted composers. He received the German Record Critics' Award in 2007 and the OPUS KLASSIK Award in 2018. His most recent CD “Ukrainian Préludes” was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards in 2025.
Alex Weiser is the Director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research where he curates and produces programs combining a fascination with and curiosity for historical context, with an eye toward influential Jewish contributions to the culture of today and tomorrow. Born and raised in NYC, Weiser is also an active composer of contemporary classical music. Weiser’s debut album and all the days were purple, was named a 2020 Pulitzer Prize Finalist and cited as “a meditative and deeply spiritual work whose unexpected musical language is arresting and directly emotional.” Released by Cantaloupe Music in April 2019, the album includes songs in Yiddish and English.