Media Contacts:

Nanette McGuinness / nanette@E4TT.org

Max Horowitz / 347.267.9563 / maxcrossover@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 15, 2024

Ensemble for These Times

 

Announces the Its Fifth Recording

 

“Émigrés & Exiles in Hollywood”

 

Performed by

 

Nanette McGuinness, soprano, Abigail Monroe, cello, and Margaret Halbig, piano

 

Featuring

Music by émigré composers who fled World War II for Los Angeles

and became instrumental in founding today’s famous “Hollywood” sound,

shaping the music of generations of American composers

 

Released on Centaur Records (CRC 4111) on July 12, 2024

             

San Francisco, CA – Award-winning SF contemporary chamber music group Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) — is proud to announce the release of the group’s fifth recording, “Émigrés & Exiles in Hollywood” on July 12, 2024 on Centaur Records (CRC 4111). The result of a multi-year exploration via the group’s “Jewish Music & Poetry Project (JMPP), the digital EP features music by many of the talented émigré composers who fled a war-torn Europe during World War II for Los Angeles, going on to write film noir and other movie scores and establish the “Hollywood” style that we hear in the music of John Williams and so many other films today, as well as landing in academia and shaping the next generations of American composers. Featuring chamber music, arrangements, and songs by eight composers—Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Miklós Rózsa, both of whom went on to win Academy Awards, Hanns Eisler, Bronislaw Kaper, Arnold Schoenberg, Alexandre Tansman, Henryk Vars, and Eric Zeisl—and is performed by soprano Nanette McGuinness, cellist Abigail Monroe, and pianist Margaret Halbig.

“Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood,” was made possible, in part, by grants from the Dennis Schuman Foundation, The Puffin Foundation, the Ross McKee Foundation, the Koret Foundation, and E4TT’s generous supporters.

 

Download the press release as a pdf.

Download the one-sheet as a pdf.

 

A LEGACY CREATED

“Émigrés & Exiles in Hollywood” is the result of Ensemble for These Times’s multi-year exploration of émigré composers from World War II, whose legacy has been so important to the world and yet whose contributions to musical and cinematic culture are so often forgotten today—sometimes because their work for the film studios went uncredited. It is no exaggeration to say that the course of film and classical music written throughout the world after 1940 was both enriched and irrevocably guided by the many talented exiles who settled in Southern California to escape persecution from the Third Reich.  The repertoire in the initiative ranges from standard classical chamber music to arrangements and excerpts of operatic/classical works, as well as movie tunes, pop songs, and arrangements. The album consists of favorites from the initiative by eight composers, most of whom were nominated for and/or won Academy Awards: Hanns Eisler (None But the Lonely Heart; Hangmen Also Die), Bronislaw Kaper (Mutiny on the Bounty; Lili), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (The Adventures of Robinhood; The Sea Hawk), Miklós Rózsa (Ben Hur; A Double Life; Spellbound), Arnold Schoenberg (the towering inventor of twelve-tone compositional technique; Walk the Rex), Alexandre Tansman (Paris Underground; Flesh and Fantasy), Henryk Vars (Schindler’s List; Flipper; The Pianist), and Eric Zeisl (Song of Russia; The Postman Always Rings Twice).  Some, such as the works by Korngold and Schoenberg, are better known than others–although few are ubiquitous in today’s concert halls–but others, particularly the Vars Polish songs, and the Zeisl art songs, are true rarities, barely heard since their era and with scores that only exist in archives. 

 

ABOUT THE ALBUM

Released as Centaur Records CRC 4111, the album features 25 works for various combinations of soprano, cello, and piano: Eisler: Der Kirschdieb (1942) and Hollywood-Elegie Nr. 7 (1947); Kaper: “Invitation—A Study for Piano” (based on a theme from Invitation, 1952); Korngold: Tanzlied des Pierrot, arr. cello and piano, from Die tote Stadt, Op. 12 (1916-20); Serenade from Der Schneemann, arranged for cello and piano (1909); Rózsa: Kaleidoscope, Op. 19b (1946), March, Zingara, and Burlesque; Schoenberg: “Galathea” from Brettl Lieder (Cabaret Songs, 1901), for soprano and piano; Tansman: Six Songs for Voice and Piano: “Cabaret” (1934) for soprano and piano; Trois préludes en forme de blues (1931): Movement I. Lento cantabile and II. Moderato, for piano; Recueil  de Mazurkas (1918-28), I. Oberek and VIII. Moderato for piano; Deux Pièces (1931) I. Mélodie and II. Capriccio for cello and piano; Vars: “Echoes of Love” (1950), arranged for soprano, cello, piano; “Let the Chips Fall (Where They May)” from Man in the Vault (1956) for voice and piano; Nie wiedzialem (from Wyrok Zycia, 1933) for voice and piano; “Sleep My Child” (1948) for voice and piano; Zlociste wloski (from Jego ekscelencja subiekt, 1933); and Zeisl: Religioso and Hirten Melodie (Mélodie Pastorale) (Shepherd’s Melody) from Klavierstücke / November, 1937-38) for piano; Dieselbe for soprano and piano (1938); and Du, for soprano and piano (1928).

Via the group's Jewish Music & Poetry Project, the Émigrés & Exiles initiative has toured to the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival in Poland, the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, UCLA, and the Paderewski Festival in Southern California, and venues in the Bay Area. “Émigrés & Exiles in Hollywood” is the group’s small but important attempt to help fill this lacuna, along with providing a tiny glimpse of the music of these composers’ often-forgotten but nonetheless wonderful oeuvre. To this end, our decision in recording the collection on this album has been to include individual movements of more pieces rather than fewer but longer complete works.

 

Available for streaming on all major platforms (iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, etc.).

To view the album booklet, go to https://E4TT.org/emigresbooklet.pdf

To see the EPK (including listening links), go to https://E4TT.org/emigresEPK.html

To watch the album trailer, go to https://youtu.be/ojEohRH5Y-A?si=4_c_sil5GXCdKNQ8

High resolution jpgs are available for download at https://E4TT.org/presskit.html

 

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Hanns Eisler (1898-1962). Born in Leipzig to a musical family, Hanns Eisler grew up in Austria, where he studied with Schoenberg. A staunch Communist, Eisler found his works banned by the Nazis in the 1930s and spent the rest of the 1930s traveling in exile before moving to Los Angeles. Two of his film scores from that period (None But the Lonely Heart and Hangmen Also Die) were nominated for Oscars; while in LA, he continued to collaborate with playwright Bertolt Brecht and also worked with philosopher Theodor Adorno. Blacklisted during the Cold War and investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, he was deported in 1948, eventually settling in East Berlin. 

Born in Warsaw, Bronislaw Kaper (1902-1983) was an Oscar-winning composer of movies and musical theater, with over 200 film and TV scores to his credit and multiple nominations (Lili, Mutiny on the Bounty, A Night at the Opera). After working in Berlin and Paris, he was invited to the U.S. for a contract with MGM. He is primarily known today for the LA Philharmonic’s annual award in his name given to gifted young musicians as well as the theme to the 1952 MGM movie Invitation.

Child prodigy Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) was born in Brno (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and called “a musical genius” by Gustav Mahler when he heard the 10-year-old Erich play. Puccini is said to have remarked that Korngold had “so much talent he could easily give half away—and still have enough left for himself.” Korngold’s career in Los Angeles as a film composer is legendary, with 16 films, numerous Oscar nominations, and two Academy Awards for his scores, including The Adventures of Robin Hood and Anthony Adverse. A giant of Hollywood film music and considered one of its founders, his legacy and influence cannot be overstated.

Miklós Rózsa (1907-1995) was born in Budapest and moved to the U.S. in 1940.  One of the very few émigrés who succeeded equally in both the American concert scene and Hollywood, Rózsa won Academy Awards for his scores to Ben-Hur, Spellbound, and A Double-Life, along with nominations for many more, including the Thief of Baghdad, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Jungle Book, and others. E4TT recorded Rozsa’s Duo Op. 8 for cello and piano on Ensemble for These Times’ award-winning second album, “The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus,” also with

Born to a Jewish family in Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) taught at the Preussische Akademie der Künste in Berlin in the 1920s and later at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. A towering figure in the history of music, his monumental importance as an expressionist composer of the Second Viennese School and the creator of classical serialism, as well as his influence as a teacher on composers for film, film noir, and traditional classical music cannot be underestimated.  

Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) was born in Lodz (then part of Russia). A composer and virtuoso pianist, he moved first to France and then, in 1941, to Los Angeles. There he composed and scored films, including Paris Underground. After the war, he returned to France, continuing to write classical works in a neoclassical style that combined Jewish and French influences.

Born to a Jewish musical family in Warsaw, film and song composer Henryk Vars (1902-1977) (né Warszawski) first shortened his name to “Wars” in Poland for the theater and then changed the spelling to Vars when he immigrated to the U.S., to match the Polish pronunciation. He conducted, scored, and composed music for numerous films, often uncredited, including Flipper and The Big Heat.

Austrian composer Eric Zeisl (1905-1959) was born in Vienna to an upper-middle-class family that strongly opposed his desire to become a musician. In 1938 he fled the Nazis, moving first to Paris, then to New York City, and finally to Los Angeles. There he worked (uncredited) on a number of film scores, including Lassie Come Home and The Postman Always Rings Twice, and taught at Los Angeles City College. Increasingly unhappy with the movie studio scene, Zeisl turned back to classical concert music and died at the age of 53; his oeuvre includes works in numerous genres, especially art song.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Soprano and E4TT co-founder and Artistic Executive Director NANETTE MCGUINNESS has performed in 13 languages on two continents in over 25 roles with the Silesian State (Czech Republic), Opera San Jose (Opera in the Schools), and West Bay Opera, Pacific Repertory Opera, Trinity Lyric Opera, and Livermore Valley Opera, among others. Solo concert engagements include Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, as well as Shéhérézade (Ravel), Nuits d’étés (Berlioz), Stabat Mater (Rossini), Requiem (Fauré), Gloria (Vivaldi), Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn), Vesperae Solennes (Mozart), and Handel’s Messiah and Solomon. McGuinness has been featured on seven albums with Centaur and Yuggoth Records, and her CD of music by 19th and 20th century women composers, Fabulous Femmes (Centaur)—was called “perfect for the song recital lover” by Chamber Music Magazine. She earned her PhD in Music (specializing in Musicology) at UC Berkeley, MM in Vocal Performance from Holy Names College, and BA in Music from Cornell University.

Cellist ABIGAIL MONROE hails from New Mexico and holds a Bachelor’s degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in cello performance under the instruction of Jennifer Culp. She has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician, and large ensemble musician in venues across the United States. As a San Francisco resident, Abigail performs frequently throughout the Bay Area as both a classical cellist. She has served as both Principal cellist of the SFCM Orchestra, as well as the Miami Summer Music Festival Symphony Orchestra. As the winner of the Jackie McGehee Young Artists Competition in 2019, Abigail was also featured as cello soloist performing Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the New Mexico Philharmonic.

Pianist MARGARET HALBIG is in high demand as a collaborative artist in both the instrumental and vocal fields. She is currently Associate Chair of the Voice Department and Principal Vocal Coach at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. During the summer, Margaret is Collaborative Piano Coordinator of Interlochen Arts Camp where she coordinates vocal, instrumental, and dance pianists, collaborates on faculty recitals, teaches piano, and plays with students. An advocate of new and contemporary music, she is the pianist for Ninth Planet, a San Francisco-based new music collective where she also serves on the board. She is also a member of Frequency 49, a wind and piano sextet, which performs all over the Bay Area. Halbig earned her DMA from the University of California Santa Barbara and also holds performance degrees from the University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory and University of Evansville, Indiana.

 

ABOUT ENSEMBLE FOR THESE TIMES

Winner of The American Prize in 2021 for Chamber Music Performance, ENSEMBLE FOR THESE TIMES (E4TT) consists of award-winning soprano/ Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, cellist Abigail Monroe, pianist Margaret Halbig, and co-founder/ Senior Artistic Advisor composer David Garner. E4TT made its international debut in Berlin in 2012; was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest for a four-city tour of Hungary in 2014; and performed at the Krakow Culture Festival in 2016 and 2022, and at the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid in 2017. E4TT has performed locally at the German Consulate General, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Old First Concerts, JCC Peninsula, Trinity Chamber Concerts, and Noontime Concerts, among other venues. E4TT has released four albums, all of which have medaled in the Global Music Awards: “The Guernica Project” (2022), commemorating the 85th anniversary of the horrific carpet bombing of civilians and Picasso’s masterwork in response; “Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan” (2020), honoring the centennial of the seminal 20th-century poet; “The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus” (2018), with works by Hungarian émigré Miklós Rózsa, and three of his compatriots who perished in the Holocaust; and “Surviving: Women’s Words,” (2016), new music to poetry by women Holocaust survivors. For more information about our programs go to our website.

 

ENSEMBLE FOR THESE TIMES’ FIRST FOUR AWARD-WINNING RECORDINGS

“Surviving: Women’s Words” (Centaur CRC 3490, 2016), E4TT’s debut CD, new music to poems by four women Holocaust survivors, won a Silver Medal in the 2016 Global Music Awards. Lesley Mitchell-Clarke in The Whole Note wrote of it, “Now more than ever […] the potent and timeless messages of survival, love, tolerance and forgiveness contained on this brilliant presentation need to resonate throughout the world.”

“The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus” (Centaur CRC 3660, 2018,  Gold Medal in the 2018 Global Music Awards) features a rarely heard cello duo composed by Hollywood movie maven (and Hungarian émigré) Miklós Rózsa (Spellbound, Ben-Hur), along with works by three others of his compatriots who perished in the Holocaust  Stephen Smoliar wrote in “The Rehearsal Studio,” “Lerner-Wright and Tsang knew how to tap into the rhetorical side of Rósza’s Opus 8 duo, making it clear that there was more to the music than the composer’s skill in reflecting Hungarian idioms.”

“Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan" (2020, Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards) honors the centennial of seminal writer Paul Celan (1920-1970) whose work speaks to his experiences of loss, disempowerment, and survival under a brutal regime via four premiere recordings of works by E4TT co-founder David Garner and Jared Redmond to poems by Celan; Stephen Eddins, to poetry by Celan contemporary, Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), with a reading by son Anthony Milosz); and Libby Larsen. Writes Raul da Gama in The Whole Note, “Paul Celan was one of the 20th century’s most profound poets. To listen to this breathtaking recording of his poetry is to be drawn to its haunting beauty as if by gossamer strings.”

“The Guernica Project" (Centaur CRC 3946, 2022, Gold Medal in the Global Music Awards) commemorates the 85th anniversary of Picasso's iconic painting of the same name and its motivation, the horrific carpet-bombing of civilians in the Basque town of Gernika with new music by four modern Spanish and California composers, to poetry by Antonio Machado (1875-1939) and Ernestina de Champourcin (1905-1999). Mark Estren in “Transcentury Communications” wrote, "Every work on this CD is well-crafted, sincere, and performed with sensitivity."

 

For more information, contact:

 Max Horowitz 347.267.9563 maxcrossover@gmail.com

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