Sabine Berendse (of Cardiff) and Paul Clements (of Birmingham) will be touring the United States with their multimedia performance program Revolutions in Music, which is also the introduction of their new book, the first-English-language publication of the interviews of actor Paul Bunge (who is Berendse’s father) with composer Hanns Eisler (1898-1962).
The multimedia performance,which will be held Tuesday, April 24 at 7 p.m. in Arts and Communications S147, is open to the campus community and the general public. Admission is free.
In lively, witty conversations, Eisler retells his life story, from his Viennese beginnings as a favorite student of Arnold Schoenberg to the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic in Berlin, when Eisler discovered communism and collaborated with workers’ music and theater groups. During these years, Eisler also formed a partnership that was to shape his career and form the basis of his artistic identity: his collaboration with the radical playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht. When Hitler came to power, the Jew and open left-winger Eisler fled in fear of his life. He landed in Hollywood, where he composed many film scores and earned two Oscar nominations, and he again collaborated with Brecht, but decried as “the Karl Marx of Music,” he was eventually hounded out of the country by the House Un-American Activities Committee. He resettled in Berlin and resumed his work with Brecht at the famed Berliner Ensemble, and he also composed the national anthem of the German Democratic Republic.
On this American tour, Berendse and Clements will be offering twelve performances in nine cities, including New York, Chicago and Madison in addition to Oshkosh. The multimedia program will last a little more than an hour. Readings from the conversation will be accompanied by historical recordings and images from Eisler’s life and times. The presentation is co-sponsored by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, the History Department, the Honors Program and the College of Letters and Sciences.
For more information, contact Alan Lareau.
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