HEAVEN, HELL, AND HOLLYWOOD Comes to Copaland House

On Sunday afternoon, November 19, Copland House will present Heaven, Hell, and Hollywood, a musical journey into the legendary community of artistic exiles in World War II-era Los Angeles. The concert features the internationally-acclaimed Music from Copland House ensemble, hailed by The New Yorker as "bold, adventurous, and superb," and takes place at the historic Merestead estate in Mount Kisco at 3pm. A meet-the-artist reception follows immediately afterwards.

Luminaries from Germany, Austria, and elsewhere in Europe - the elite in their fields - fled tyranny, imprisonment, or death for safe haven in the U.S. Europe's loss was America's gain, as these composers, painters, writers, and film and stage actors and directors help to re-shape the U.S. artistic landscape for decades to come. They found solace in southern California's colorful hillsides, gardens, and beaches ... but sometimes also frustration, extreme disappointments, and, in some cases, abject failure.

MCH performs works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, one of history's greatest child prodigies who became Hollywood's most acclaimed film composer; Ernst Toch, winner of the 1956 Pulitzer Prize and a highly-influential professor and author; and Hanns Eisler, author Berthold Brecht's preferred musical collaborator (after Kurt Weill). Offering a first-hand account of growing up in this remarkable milieu will be Lawrence Weschler, Toch's grandson, a longtime writer for The New Yorker, and artistic director emeritus of both the Chicago Humanities Festival and New York Institute of Humanities.

Soprano Justine Aronson, "who swept us to new heights with the daring of a trapeze artist" (La Scena Musicale) joins Michael Boriskin, "a pianist with the Midas touch" (The New York Times), to perform two magical song cycles on texts of Shakespeare by Korngold, who composed them fresh off his triumph of scoring the 1935 classic film, Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by the celebrated Max Reinhardt. Aronson and Boriskin also present a selection of works by Eisler, who began each day by composing a European-style art song as a way of maintaining a connection to his far-off homeland. Music from Copland House offers a r

The concert is made possible by funds from the Westchester Community Foundation. 2017-18 season support for Copland House's mainstage concert series receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and ArtsWestchester. Tickets are $25 ($10 for students with ID) and are available online or from the Copland House office at 914-788-4659.