Lost music of Nazis’ prisoners to be heard at concert in Jerusalem

A quest over nearly 30 years by an Italian musician to track down music composed by Nazi concentration camp victims will reach fruition in April with the first orchestral performance of many of the unearthed works.

Francesco Lotoro, a music teacher, composer and pianist, tracked down thousands of songs, symphonies and even operas composed in Nazi concentration, forced labour and prisoner of war camps in Germany and elsewhere before and during the second world war.

Lotoro’s search for the lost music involved scouring bookshops and archives as well as interviewing Holocaust survivors. He accumulated about 8,000 pieces of music including scores written on scraps of scavenged paper, toilet paper and newspaper, composed in allied as well as axis camps.

Some of the music will be performed for the first time. It will be heard at a concert by Israel’s Ashdod symphony orchestra in Jerusalem among events marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel.


Source : theguardian