:::: Dear Friends of other music!

This website will continue to function as an archive. Please find the current active websites at the following addresses:

www.othermusic.eu  | www.winteredition.eu | www.yiddishsummer.eu

:::: What is OTHER MUSIC?

It’s a think tank, an education center and a community resource, where musicians, artists and scholars from around the world join to exchange ideas, create projects, teach, and interact with students and other communities to promote an intercultural philosophy.

:::: Intercultural?

Society is in danger of being torn apart by conflicts among cultures. It’s easy to blame competing traditions for the problem. But if we abandon traditions completely, we impoverish ourselves. We need instead to re-connect with the ways traditions can give meaning instead of generate conflict. The clue? Understanding and experiencing that every vital culture is already a hybrid, the result of centuries of communication and exchange among different cultures. The same is true even of individuals. That’s interculturality.

:::: How does OTHER MUSIC promote interculturality?

Through concerts, workshops, and other projects, we invite people to have first-hand experiences of “other” cultures. The result is often life-changing. What was thought to be strange or different turns out to be familiar and deeply meaningful. And since our faculty and students come from all over the world, the networks they create in Weimar reach far beyond the borders of our workshops.

:::: Who runs OTHER MUSIC?

We’re a small, private initiative structured as a non-profit organization based in Weimar, Germany, directed by Dr. Alan Bern, a pioneer of contemporary Jewish music, philosopher and innovative pedagogue, and Stephanie Erben, Director of Administration. Our artists, scholars, and teachers come from North America, South America, Europe, Russia, Turkey and Israel and have included Michael Alpert, Kurt Bjorling, Tamara Brooks, Stuart Brotman, Adrienne Cooper, Christian Dawid, Zev Feldman, Judith Frigyesi, Ruth Gruber, Kyriakos Gouventas, Muammer Ketencoglu, Cesar Lerner, Marilyn Lerner, Frank London, Sanne Möricke, Marcelo Moguilevsky, Sophia Papazoglou, Adela Peeva, Deborah Strauss, Yale Strom, Jeff Warschauer and many others. Our students and the members of OTHER MUSIC come from all over the world, too, and represent practically every age group, nationality, and religion.

:::: Why is OTHER MUSIC based in Weimar, Germany?

Weimar is an international tourist magnet and a symbol of both the best and worst of German history. One thinks of Goethe, Schiller, Bach, Liszt, and the democratic Weimar Republic, but also of the Buchenwald concentration camp. OTHER MUSIC is both a symbol and a reality of pluralistic culture in the heart of Europe.

:::: How and when did OTHER MUSIC begin?

In 1999, when Weimar was an official European Cultural Capital, the American New Jewish Music group, Brave Old World, was invited to give a short workshop on Yiddish culture. Every year since then, the event grew and changed until OTHER MUSIC was officially formed in 2005, with a greatly expanded agenda.

:::: Who benefits from OTHER MUSIC?

Every year, dozens of artists and scholars, several hundred students and as many as 5,000 audience members participate in our workshops and concerts. Weimar is a node from which they return their home countries, schools, universities, institutes and culture centers, having formed new personal and professionals networks.

:::: How has OTHER MUSIC been recognized?

The Deutscher Musikrat (German Music Council) awarded OTHER MUSIC the first prize in the first national competition for intergenerational, intercultural musical activity. OTHER MUSIC has been featured in dozens of television and radio programs in Europe and hundreds of articles in print.