WATCH: CCM's 'Thinking About Music' series presents virtual lecture by Michael Haas

Each semester, UC's College-Conservatory of Music welcomes distinguished experts for a series of free musical discussions and lectures. This virtual installment of CCM's Thinking About Music Series features a lecture by Michael Haas, a multiple Grammy Award-winning recording producer also known for his recovery of music lost during the Third Reich.

Originally presented via Zoom on March 19, 2021, the title of Haas' talk is “Hans or Hanuš: Winterberg’s Complex Tangles with the 20th Century.”

Hans or Hanuš: Winterberg’s Complex Tangles with the 20th Century: The true story of Hans Winterberg is murky and complex and leaves open questions of identity and fundamental existential survival. Just as concentration camp survivors hated recalling the ethical dilemmas they addressed in order to live, so the true Winterberg story also confronts us with ethical cul-de-sacs. This talk will be an exploration of these conundrums.

A Grammy Award-winning recording producer, Dr. Michael Haas initiated and produced Decca’s “Entartete Musik” series. From 2002-10 he worked as music curator at Vienna’s Jewish Museum. His book, Forbidden Music – the Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis, was published by Yale University Press in 2013. Haas’s PhD thesis from Middlesex University deals with the concept of music and cultural restitution. His blog is found at www.forbiddenmusic.org.

Since its inception in 1997, CCM's Thinking About Music Series has presented nearly 130 lectures and one symposium by guests from a number of different colleges, universities, schools of music, foundations, institutes, museums and publications. The series is co-directed by Professor of Music Theory Steven Cahn and Associate Professor of Musicology Jeongwon Joe.

The subjects of the lectures have covered historical musicology, music theory and ethnomusicology, along with the ancillary fields of organology, dance, music business and law, cognitive psychology, and the philosophy, theology and sociology of music.

Sponsored by the Joseph and Frances Jones Poetker Fund of the Cambridge Charitable Foundation, these music theory and history discussions feature diverse topics presented by distinguished experts from all over the United States and are designed to engage participants’ imaginations and to consider music in new ways.

CCM's Spring 2021 Thinking About Music series also featured lectures by Katherine Preston (College of William and Mary) and Danuta Mirka (Northwestern University).

CCM’s Thinking About Music Series is sponsored by the Joseph and Frances Jones Poetker Fund of the Cambridge Charitable Foundation, Ritter & Randolph, LLC, Corporate Counsel; along with support from the Dean's Office, the Graduate Student Association and the Division of Composition, Musicology and Theory at CCM.