Weilheim will be part of the festival year “1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany”: The concert by the “Synagogal Ensemble Berlin” on June 12th in the parish church is unique in southern Germany.
And despite Corona, it will take place in any case.
Weilheim
- “To make contemporary Jewish life in Germany visible and tangible”, that is the aim of the festival year, which is celebrated nationwide with around a thousand events (see box below). And that applies in a very unusual way to the synagogue music, which will be played on Saturday, June 12th, 7 p.m., in Weilheim's Catholic parish church Mariae Himmelfahrt. As part of the International Weilheim Organ Summer 2021, the much-vaunted “Synagogal Ensemble Berlin” (SEB) will make a guest appearance: The professional concert choir wants to bring the Jewish liturgy and cantoral music closer to a broad audience with a focus on the German tradition according to Louis Lewandowski - a music genre that was almost forgotten.
Jewish synagogue music in a baroque Catholic church building: For the organizer Ulrich Bracker from the Weilheim Musica Sacra support group, this is “also an expression of Christian-Jewish cooperation in practice” and thus a prime example of interreligious dialogue.
Especially for the performance in Weilheim, the ensemble is preparing a program with works by South German composers from the past 200 years.
You can hear Munich synagogue chants by Max G. Löwenstamm and Emanuel Kirschner from the late 19th and early 20th centuries - as well as “A Friday Evening Liturgy, Munich 1933” by Heinrich Schalit.
Church musician Jürgen Geiger accompanies the ensemble
In the almost 20 years of its existence, the “Synagogal Ensemble Berlin” (artistic director: Regina Yantian) has given countless concerts in synagogues, churches and concert halls in Germany, Poland, Serbia, Sweden, England, Italy, Israel and South Africa. It also regularly enters into intercultural dialogue, for example in 2019 in a concert with the Marien-Kantorei to mark the laying of the foundation stone of the Berlin “House of One”, under the roof of which a synagogue, a Christian church and a mosque will be built.
There is already a connection to Weilheim: the local church musician Jürgen Geiger regularly accompanies the SEB as organist, in December 2019 he was a soloist at the renowned Louis Lewandowski Festival in Berlin and Potsdam.
So the idea arose to invite this choir, which consists of singers from international opera houses, to Weilheim.
The appearance is of course only possible with the generous financial support of the association “# 2021JLID - Jewish Life in Germany”, the Buber-Rosenzweig Foundation and the Augsburg Bishop's House.
Geiger will also play the organ at the concert in the parish church, cantors are Isaac Scheffer and Nikla David.
Spectators are allowed
As a gathering of religious communities, this event can also take place with visitors on site with the current Corona regulations - of course with a corresponding hygiene concept.
Tickets at a price of 25 euros (reduced 20 euros for schoolchildren, students and trainees) can be ordered by e-mail to vorverkauf@weilheimer-orgelsommer.de.
According to the current status, around 90 places can be allocated in the church.
At the same time - and in any case - the event will be offered as a live stream on the Internet: on the YouTube channel of the Catholic parish community (Info: www.pg-weilheim.de).
In order to be able to cover the high costs of the concert, the organizers also ask listeners via livestream to transfer a fee.
More at www.weilheimer-orgelsommer.de.
