Paula Lerner Visiting Artist Program

Alicia Svigals and Donald Sosin have been bringing audiences to their feet throughout the US and Europe with their unique and stirring violin and piano scores for Jewish-themed silent films. Svigals is the world's leading klezmer violinist and a founder of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics and Sosin is a renowned silent film pianist and composer. After meeting at a silent film festival in Italy, the two soon recorded their first original score for the 1923 German film The Ancient Law, followed by City Without Jews and The Man Without a World.  Audiences throughout the U.S. and in Europe have responded to Alicia and Donald’s performances with standing ovations and much praise, including reactions such as these:

“We were mesmerized! The music—the klezmer violin and piano score—magnified the story line and captured our hearts.”
“The score’s incredible strength lies in the strong themes and exemplary performances... devastating in their beauty.” 

Cine-Concert • Saturday, April 26 • 7:30

The City Without Jews (Die Stadt ohne Juden), H. K. Breslauer’s 1924 silent masterpiece, is based on the bestselling dystopian novel by Hugo Bettauer. It was produced two years after the book’s publication and, tragically, shortly before the satirical events depicted in the fictional story transformed into all-too-horrific reality. Set in the Austrian city of Utopia (a thinly-disguised stand-in for Vienna), the story follows the political and personal consequences of an anti-Semitic law passed by the National Assembly forcing all Jews to leave the country. At first, the decision is met with celebration, but when the citizens of Utopia eventually come to terms with the loss of the Jewish population—and the resulting economic and cultural decline—the National Assembly must decide whether to invite the Jews back. Though darkly comedic in tone and stylistically influenced by German Expressionism, the film nonetheless contains ominous and eerily realistic sequences, such as shots of freight trains transporting Jews out of the city. The film’s stinging critique of Nazism is part of the reason it was no longer screened in public after 1933. More info at https://aliciasvigals.com/cine-concerts-with-donald-sosin

Made possible by Sunrise Foundation for Education and the Arts

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Remembering Paula. Paula Lerner, our dear friend and former Temple member, died of breast cancer in 2012 at the age of 52. An award-winning photographer and journalist, Paula was ceaselessly curious about the world and people. Each year, Beth El Temple Center invites an inspiring artist or group of artists to come and share their art with us.

Please contribute to the Paula Lerner Visiting Artist Fund so that we can offer this free program every year. Choose the Paula Lerner Visiting Artist Fund on the donation page.