Conference Agenda

This paper embarks on a musical and sonic ethnographic exploration of sites linked to the Holocaust and US slavery, with the aim of illuminating the interplay between memory, sound, and memorialization. Rooted in an analysis of predominant themes in Holocaust and memory studies, which often focus on Europe, this paper investigates how German memorial practices have been adopted in the United States and how these practices manifest in terms of sound. Building upon recent developments in Holocaust studies, such as Michael Rothberg’s concept of "multidirectional memory" (Rothberg, 2009), alongside musical scholarship like Amy Wlodarski’s notion of "contrapuntal listening" (Wlodarski, 2022), which examines power dynamics inherent in capturing testimony, this paper expands the concept of contrapuntal listening to encompass not only testimonies but also the physical institutional spaces where such testimonies and memories are presented, in relation to their surrounding soundscapes—both intentional and unintentional.

As points of comparison and selected case studies, this paper delves into the sonic environments of two significant memorials: Montgomery’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice, America’s inaugural memorial honoring lynching victims, and the Berlin Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, serving as one of its models. The research project aims to showcase that although there are visual similarities between these memorials, their soundscapes—ranging from carefully curated museum presentations to the surrounding urban sounds—are starkly different. For instance, the urban sounds surrounding the Berlin memorial reflect its central location in the heart of the capital, near Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate and across from the Tiergarten. In contrast, the Montgomery memorial sits on the outskirts of the city's Black community, a deliberate reflection of the U.S.'s complex zoning practices along racial lines. This paper’s conclusions are twofold: first, it highlights that despite progress in memory processes and ethical considerations regarding racism, unchanged urban infrastructures can foster a nuanced and troubling soundscape resonating with institutionalized racism and historical injustices, perpetuating echoes of the past into the present; second, it sheds light on the intricate and multifaceted nature of memorialization, elements that, like language, are not easily translatable from one culture or trauma to another.

Musical presentations of trauma have increasingly become part of the memorialization and cultural-historical reconciliation of the Holocaust. Musicological research has shown that music and sound are capable of both communicating and transmitting the disruptive effects of trauma, like that of the Holocaust (e.g. Cizmic 2012 and Wlodarski 2015). This paper spotlights an opera through which Holocaust memory is taken beyond geographically bound memorials and preserved concentration camps to theaters abroad, expanding Amy Wlodarksi’s definition of “musical witness” (2015) as a noun including the composer, artwork, and audience, to also include institutions and artists. The most widely performed Holocaust opera of the last fifteen years has undoubtedly been Polish Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg’s The Passenger (1967), adapted from the Polish novel Pasażerka (1962) written by Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz. Though scheduled to be performed at the Bolshoi Theater in 1968, The Passenger’s Soviet premiere was canceled. The opera received its first fully staged premiere at the Bregenzer Festspiele in Austria in 2010 in an unsettlingly graphic production directed by David Pountney and designed by Johan Engels. Their production garnered immediate international acclaim. It has since traveled extensively across Europe and North America, functioning as much as a Holocaust memorial as it is a Holocaust opera. This paper examines how Pountney and Engels’ production has been performed, marketed, and received across three specific institutions: The Bregenzer Festspiele (2010), The Israeli Opera (2019), and Teatro Real Madrid (2024). The ethnographic study conducted on the productions, including extensive interviews with performing artists, illuminates the dangers of imparting secondary trauma with The Passenger and the inadequacy of institutional support for artists’ mental health in the process. This paper also uses each company’s printed program materials and digital marketing practices to analyze how institutions consider The Passenger’s memorial framework when engaging with both physical and digital audiences. This paper demonstrates that each institution adjusts The Passenger’s public memorial construction in response to the demographics of its larger community, while arguing that institutions bear a fundamental responsibility to plan for and aid artists through the trauma they experience in the rehearsal and performance of Holocaust repertoire.

This paper examines how ideologies of musical appropriateness unfold through the commemoration of ethnoracial persecution and genocide. French Romanies (“Gypsies”) were among the targets of racist and genocidal policies under the Nazi and Vichy regimes that seized France during World War II. In the decades after liberation, organizations were established in France to advocate for Romani rights, yet until very recently, little progress was made in the creation of memorial sites or other official forms of recognition. Romani musicians, as public figures and sometimes as community leaders, have played important roles in the development of commemorative approaches. Some have engaged in public-facing commemorative projects, especially as part of programming by cultural institutions such as museums. Many Romanies, however, consider it inappropriate to speak out about the trauma of the war or to participate in public acts of commemoration, a sentiment that applies especially to the use of music for such political activism. This paper analyzes the tensions that emerge among Romani musicians regarding the commemoration of persecution and genocide and the role music should (or should not) play in such endeavors. It focuses on discussions about the musical components of French museum exhibitions and associated events, showing how musicians and curators debate the capacities, limitations, and even detrimental effects of bringing music to these commemorative contexts. Musical media is often perceived to afford a range of expressive possibilities for the narration of trauma that is considered unspeakable and thus inappropriate for more direct forms of testimony, and those tasked with such musical production may embrace, reject, or feel deeply ambivalent about this responsibility. This paper contributes to musicological conversations about racial politics, power dynamics within cultural institutions, and especially the performance and mediation of trauma (e.g. Fauser and Figueroa 2020), demonstrating a need for further study about the efficacy of music in memorial and activist endeavors. It argues that frameworks for genocide commemoration must account for ambivalence and dissent among those who (are made to) musically represent the voices of the persecuted.