In the spring of 2021, I was commissioned to record a program of pieces by composers with connections to the Nobel Prize winning novelist, Thomas Mann at the Thomas Mann House. It was through this search for my new program that I learned, for the first time, about Ernst Toch: a Jewish Ă©migrĂ© composer who ended up in LA, escaping the Nazis. The internet also led me to the composer’s grandson, the award winning author Lawrence Weschler whose name I had known. When I emailed him, expressing my interest in learning more about his grandfather, Mr. Weschler, or Ren, said that although he was based in NY, he was anticipating a trip to LA in a few weeks. So we met, and became friends. A year later, we were on the stage together.
Here is a 6+ minutes of highlight from our concert presented by the Colburn School.
The former staff write for the New Yorker magazine, and author of close to twenty books, many of which have received some of the most prestigious book awards, Ren must love to write. Every month, he publishes these extensive newsletters. This month, he featured his grandfather. At the very end of this issue, Ren mentioned me and our collaboration together.
In the 1940’s, when they were just fighting for their day to day survival, none of our grandparents would have been able to imagine us – their Jewish and Japanese grandchildren – sharing the stage in Los Angeles in the twenty-first century, talking about empathy and world peace. There are still too many human rights violations in the world today. But I think it’s also important that we find hope in some of the progress and success we are achieving.