Imri Talgam & Lilian Kars – Wat blijft is de muziek

• 3 May 2025
  • 20:00 – 22:00

Storytelling Concert; A tragic story full of hope with music that has long remained hidden. Pianist Imri Talgam plays previously unheard work by Menachem Asscher, a pianist and composer who was sent to Germany at the age of 22 and never returned.

Lilian Kars uses fragments from, among others, Danseres zonder benen by Menachem’s mother Clara Asscher-Pinkhof to tell the story of Menachem, which is further brought to life with music by Beethoven and Bach, among others. A ‘storytelling concert’ that leaves no one untouched.

In July 1942, 22-year-old Menachem Asscher received a ‘call-up’ for a labor camp in Germany. He went in high spirits and on July 7, 1942, he was gassed almost immediately after arriving in Auschwitz. That is where the story could have ended, as it did for many others. But Menachem, son of writer Clara Asscher Pinkhof and chief rabbi of Groningen Abraham Asscher, was a gifted pianist and a young composer. He studied at the Amsterdam conservatory and thanks to his mother, a large part of his music was saved. These works remained under the dust for years with the members of the family who survived the war. Until Lilian Kars, who is working on a book about Menachem’s uncle Sallie Pinkhof and his family together with her husband Paul Janssen, managed to find the music thanks to the detective work of the surviving family members in Israel.

Now this music is heard in public for the first time, played by the Israeli pianist Imri Talgam. Lilian Kars uses fragments from, among other things, the autobiography Danseres zonder benen by Clara Asscher-Pinkhof to tell about the life and development of Menachem, while the story and the music are further embossed by works by Beethoven, Bach and Menachem’s contemporary Leo Smit. In combination with photos of Menachem and his family, it maps the horrors of war in an exciting way and makes it clear in passing how a treasure trove of cultural wealth and development can be brutally cut off. A concert full of palpable drama, compelling music and ultimately, above all, hope.

Reservations: info@huismidwoud.nl

Saturday May 3, 2025

Start: 20:00 | Doors open: 19:30

Entrance: € 25.00 | Students and up to 21 years: € 12.50