For the new season, James Gaffigan is bringing a piece of his homeland New York to the Komische Oper Berlin! While our General Music Director has found his adopted home here, many prominent European composers headed for the safe haven of America in the 20th century. New York opened up influential professional opportunities for Antonín Dvořák and Gustav Mahler. Kurt Weill worked on the up-and-coming musical on Broadway. Erich Wolfgang Korngold laid the foundations for the film music genre in Hollywood and his soundtracks inspired film music legend John Williams.

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James' Choice

Kleiner Saal

This program compares the musical styles of five Jewish composers—many of whom were Eastern European émigrés to the U.S.—writing during the explosive rise of the Jazz Age in the early 20th century. Written pre-WWI, Ignatz Waghalter’s expressive Violin Concerto exemplifies the European style before jazz took hold, while Lazare Saminsky, who was critical of the new musical form, gave us the vividly mystical triad Vigiliae. Written at the height of the Roaring Twenties in Germany, Ernst Toch’s Comedy for Orchestra in One Movement incorporates a vibrant and witty rhythmic pulse that represents the impact jazz had on the European avant-garde. Louis Gruenberg’s 1925 Jazz Suite demonstrates the marriage of jazz with the traditional classical form, which reached its pinnacle with An American in Paris by George Gershwin, an American capturing the energy of Europe through a thoroughly jazz-colored lens.

Ignatz Waghalter

Events

Upcoming events

14 - 15 Nov, 2026

Gershwin, Jazz, and the Music of Jewish Émigrés · Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College

Past events

Oct 31, 2024

James' Choice · Komische Oper Berlin

About

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