In its first years of existence, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera set out to internationalize English opera culture, both by attracting international artists and leading proponents of a new concept of opera production and by giving émigrés the chance to further hone skills developed in Central Europe and beyond.
Professor Esther Leslie and Dr Sam Dolbear, co-authors of the 2023 book Dissonant Waves: Ernst Schoen and Experimental Sound in the Twentieth Century, will first talk about the life of Ernst Schoen (1894-1960)—poet, composer, radio programmer, theorist, and best friend of Walter Benjamin from childhood—as he moves between Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, and London.
Over more than five decades, her work for the Academic Assistance Council and its successor, the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, ensured refuge for thousands of displaced academics worldwide and had a profound impact on twentieth-century science, philosophy, philology, architecture and art history.
