Touring exhibition

Leo Kestenberg (1882-1962)
The Unity of Artistic and Social Responsibility - a Vision?

The touring exhibition opened on December 1, 2005, as part of the Leo-Kestenberg-Symposium. It portrays the fascinating and inspiring music educator and political advisor and provides an assessment of his ideas and their application to the work of music schools today. Intended to appeal to people of all age groups, it also has been conceived as a touring exhibit for music schools.

On ten freestanding panels which can be interconnected, the most important phases and chief themes of Kestenberg's life and work are portrayed through reproductions of art works, photographs and documents. Video recordings of interviews with Kestenberg's contemporaries and instructional sequences from current work with music students are available for viewing at an audiovisual station.

In addition to the different phases of his life in Ružomberok, Berlin, Prague, and Tel Aviv, the emphasis is on the reform activities of Kestenberg's Berlin period (1918-1932):

• the reform of music instruction in all types of schools
• the establishment of the first music schools
• the appointment of some of the twentieth century's most renowned composers to positions in Berlin
• the founding of the Kroll Opera, where some of the most important productions and premieres of the first half of the twentieth century took place.

High points of the exhibition are the reproductions and facsimiles of artworks that portray Kestenberg or are dedicated to him:

• the poem "Leo Kestenberg" by Else Lasker-Schüler
• the composition "Die Erscheinung. Leo Kestenberg gewidmet" by Ferruccio Busoni
• the Kestenberg bust by Ernst Barlach
• the Kestenberg portrait by Oskar Kokoschka

No colour reproduction of the Kokoschka painting had previously been made. We are proud to be able to display this artistically and historically important work.

Thanks to our collaboration with The Archive of Israeli Music, Tel Aviv University, David and Yolanda Katz Faculty of Arts, we are able to display previously unpublished photographs of Kestenberg.

The videos on display are edited versions of interviews with people who knew Kestenberg in Berlin, Prague or Israel, several of whom are renowned contemporary artists such as the painter Yehuda Bacon, the pianists Edith Kraus and Menachem Pressler, and the composer Joseph Tal.

Additional recordings offer glimpses into the work with pupils at the music school today through examples of lessons and concerts, including a recording of the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester playing compositions by pupils from the Leo Kestenberg Music School.

Concept and production: Andreas Eschen
Design: sujet-design
Interviews with contemporary eyewitnesses: Theda Weber-Lucks and Ann-Kathrin Seidel
Selection and arrangement of archival materials, written commentary: Theda Weber-Lucks
Documentation of music school activities: Dietmar Herriger

A touring exhibition by the Leo Kestenberg Music School Berlin Tempelhof-Schöneberg

The exhibit currently is on display in the Leo Kestenberg Musikschule: Haus am Kleistpark, Grunewaldstr. 6-7, 10823 Berlin, Tel.030-7560-6967. Open: Mon.-Thurs. 9a.m.-noon and 1-3:30 p.m.

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