Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Premieres Oratorio about WWII Jewish Refugees

Émigré, an oratorio about Jewish refugees exiled in Shanghai during WWII, was premiered by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in Shanghai on November 17.

This production is a 4-year collaboration between the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic as well as choirs from the U.S. and China. The music is composed by award winning American composer Aaron Zigman, and the lyrics are written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Campbell and songwriter Brock Walsh.

Émigré “is a story about two German Jewish brothers who had to flee Nazi Germany, and they came to Shanghai, which at that time opened its doors to many Jews, ” Zigman said.

In the late 1930s, as WWII was about to break out, an estimated 20,000 European Jews escaped to Shanghai, one of the only few “open ports” requiring no visas for Jewish refugees to land. Among them there were over 400 musicians who made their living as classical concert musicians, such as Ferdinand Adler, or as freelance music teachers such as Gerard Pincus or Hans Baer, as well as recording musicians and composers such as Otto and Walter Joachim.

The two German Jewish brothers in the Oratorio could possibly be modeled from the Joachim brothers. But they certainly could include elements from the lives of many other Jewish refugees in Shanghai at the time. The over 400 musicians among the Jewish refugees left an incredible legacy in China, which still carries on strongly today. One can boldly say, musicians in today's Shanghai Symphony Orchestra - and many other Chinese orchestras, are their musical descendants - students and grand-students of those Jewish refugee musicians.

Émigré is scheduled to be performed in New York early 2024.

(With original news source from Reuters, reported by Casey Hall.)

(Photo sourced from Reuters)

(This article contains the author's personal research.)