The Leo Baeck Institute and the American Society for Jewish Music invite you for a night of live music with Karyn Levitt, Soprano and Jed Distler, Piano.

Many of Hollywood’s greatest film scores were written by émigré and exiled composers who fled Nazi Europe for Southern California. From dusty westerns and sweeping romances to the thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock, this program celebrates the blending of the old world and the new to produce the uniquely hybrid sound of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Musical geniuses such as Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Friedrich Hollaender and Franz Waxman from Germany, Erich Korngold, Walter Jurmann and Max Steiner from Austria, Dimitri Tiomkin from today’s Ukraine, Miklós Rózsa from Hungary, Brnislaw Kaper from Poland and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco from Italy brought from their respective homelands the highest level of culture, which they poured into the American film industry. American music benefited as we became heir to their legacy.

Karyn Levitt and Jed Distler perform their songs in a theatrically directed, choreographed, and gorgeously lit musicological journey through some of Hollywood’s most iconic film scores. The songs range in style from Weimar cabaret and operetta to country-western, classical art song, and jazz…

What started as an idea for a tribute to the remarkable composers who found themselves in exile in California in the first half of the last century turned out to be a run of highly acclaimed and sold-out shows in New York City. Soprano Karyn Levitt and pianist Jed Distler have brought On Hollywood and Weimar to the legendary NYC cabaret venue 54 Below, to JxJ Jewish Music and Film Festival in Washington, D.C. as well as to Off-Broadway’s York and Triad Theaters.

Date and Time: Wednesday, May 15, 2024 at 7:30 PM

Location: Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011

More Information: https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2024/05/15/On-Hollywood-and-Weimar-Songs-of-European-Composers-from-the-Golden-Age-of-Fil-0730PM