Alan Bern (Bloomington, Indiana, 1955) is an American composer, pianist, accordionist, educator and cultural activist, based in Berlin since 1987. He is the founding artistic director of Yiddish Summer Weimar and the Other Music Academy (OMA). He is internationally recognized for his contributions to the research, dissemination and creative renewal of Jewish music with Brave Old World, The Other Europeans and the Semer Ensemble, among others. He is the creator of Present-Time Composition, a musical and educational approach informed by cognitive science that integrates the methods of improvisation and composition. In 2016 he received the Weimar Prize in recognition of major cultural contributions to the city of Weimar. In 2017 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Free State of Thuringia, and in 2022 he was awarded the

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of president ...

Education

Bern attended University High School. He received a B.A. cum laude in Religious Studies from Indiana University Bloomington (1976), an M.A. in Philosophy under

Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (March 28, 1942 – April 19, 2024) was an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. His research centered on the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of biology, particularly as those ...

from Tufts University (1983) and a D.M.A in Music Composition under Joel Hoffman from the College-Conservatory of Music,

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati, informally Cincy) is a public university, public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1819 and had an enrollment of over 53,000 students in 2024, making it the ...

(2006). In addition to his formal education, Bern studied classical piano with Sidney Foster,

Paul Badura-Skoda Paul Badura-Skoda (6 October 1927 – 25 September 2019) was an Austrian pianist. Career A student of Edwin Fischer, Badura-Skoda first rose to prominence by winning first prize in the Austrian Music Competition in 1947. In 1949, he performed w ...

and

Leonard Shure Leonard Shure (April 10, 1910 in Los Angeles – February 28, 1995 in Nantucket, Massachusetts) was an American concert pianist. He began his career as a performer at the age of 5 and as a teenager studied privately with Artur Schnabel in Germany. ...

and chamber music with

Josef Gingold Josef Gingold (; January 11, 1995) was a Russian and American classical violinist and teacher who lived most of his life in the United States. At the time of his death he was considered one of the most influential violin masters in the United St ...

and György Sebök. He studied jazz with David Baker at

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, IUB, or Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana Univer ...

and Improvisation with

Ran Blake Ran Blake (born April 20, 1935) is an American pianist, composer, and educator. He is known for his unique style that combines blues, gospel, classical, and film noir influences into an innovative and dark jazz sound. His career spans over 40 rec ...

at the

New England Conservatory The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a Private college, private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. The conservatory is located on Huntington Avenue along Avenue of the Arts (Boston), the Avenue of the Arts near Boston Symphony Ha ...

. At the

Creative Music Studio The Creative Music Studio (CMS) was a premier study center for contemporary creative music during the 1970s and 1980s, based in Woodstock, New York. Founded in 1971 by Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso, and Ornette Coleman, it brought together students an ...

in Woodstock, New York, he studied contemporary music with

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

Frederic Rzewski Frederic Anthony Rzewski ( ; April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) was an American composer and pianist, considered to be one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time. From 1977 up to his eventual death, he lived mainly in Be ...

Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chi ...

, the

Art Ensemble of Chicago The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, AACM) in the late 1960s. The ensemble integrates many jaz ...

Carla Bley Carla Bley (born Lovella May Borg; May 11, 1936 – October 17, 2023) was an American jazz composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader. An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she gained acclaim for her jazz opera ''Escalator ...

and

Karl Berger Karl Hans Berger (March 30, 1935 – April 9, 2023) was a German-American jazz pianist, vibraphonist, composer, and educator. He was a leading figure in jazz improvisation from the 1960s when he settled in the United States for life. He founde ...

, among many others.

Music projects

As a musician and band leader, Bern is best known as co-founder of Brave Old World, founder of Diaspora Redux, The Other Europeans, and the Semer Ensemble. He has also performed and recorded with the

Klezmer Conservatory Band The Klezmer Conservatory Band is a Boston-based group which performs traditional klezmer music; it was formed by Hankus Netsky of the New England Conservatory, New England Conservatory of Music in 1980. Originally formed for a single concert, they ...

Andy Statman Andrew Edward Statman (born 1950) is a noted American klezmer clarinetist and bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist. Life and career Statman was born in New York City and grew up in the borough of Queens. Beginning at age 12, he learned to play banj ...

, Bern, Brody & Rodach,

Guy Klucevsek Guy Klucevsek (February 26, 1947 – May 22, 2025) was an American accordionist and composer known for his fusion of polka, minimalism and experimental music. He began playing accordion at age five and later studied at the California Institute of ...

, the Accordion Tribe,

The Klezmatics The Klezmatics are an American klezmer music group based in New York City, who have achieved fame singing in several languages, most notably mixing older Yiddish language, Yiddish tunes with other types of more contemporary music of differing or ...

Itzhak Perlman Itzhak Perlman (; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the First ina ...

, Alpen Klezmer and Voices of Ashkenaz, among many others. In 2016-17 he composed a song cycle based on children’s poems by the Polish-Jewish poet, Kadya Molodovsky. The song cycle was the centerpiece of the Kadya Choir project
www.kadya.eu
, which brought together a girls choir from Weimar (

Schola Cantorum The Schola Cantorum de Paris ( being ) is a private conservatory in Paris. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent d'Indy as a counterbalance to the Paris Conservatoire's emphasis on opera. History The Schol ...

Weimar) with a girls choir from Tel Aviv-Jaffa
Voices of Peace Choir
and is the subject of a feature-length documentary film ''The Young Kadyas'' that has been shown in German theaters and at international film festivals (https://www.1meter60-film.de/film-detail/die-jungen-kadyas/).

Weimar-based projects

Beginning in 1999, Bern’s activities have increasingly been centered in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

, Germany. He is artistic director of Yiddish Summer Weimar, the Other Music Academy (OMA), the OMA Improvisation Project, the OMA Middle Eastern Music & Cultures Project, and Weimar klingt!, among others, as well as chair of Other Music Academy e.V., the non-profit organization responsible for those projects.

Yiddish Summer Weimar (YSW)

Bern is founding artistic director of

Yiddish Summer Weimar Yiddish Summer Weimar is an annual summer institute and festival for Yiddish music, language and culture which takes place in Weimar, Germany. Starting as a 3-day workshop in 1998, it was officially founded in its current form in 2006 and has grow ...

, a five-week summer institute and festival in Weimar, Germany. Currently, it is the longest and most intensive program for the research, dissemination and creative renewal of Yiddish culture in the world. YSW annually attracts students, artists, educators and audiences from more than 20 countries to its workshops, concerts, lectures and symposia, new music, dance and theater projects, jam sessions and more. Bern’s artistic direction gives equal weight to subject matter and pedagogical approach. YSW explores the subject of Yiddish culture as an ongoing, fundamentally intercultural process that is part of a complex matrix of European and non-European cultures. Its pedagogical approach emphasizes experiential learning, embodied knowledge, diversity and social interaction, and the complementarity of artistic, scientific and social creativity. Bern’s vision of YSW as a non-authoritarian, international and diverse learning community has been strongly influenced by the principles of

Ted Sizer Theodore Ryland Sizer (June 23, 1932 – October 21, 2009) was a leader of educational reform in the United States, the founder (and eventually President Emeritus) of the Coalition of Essential Schools, Essential school movement and was known for ...

and the Coalition of Essential Schools. Yiddish Summer Weimar has received awards from the European Union, the European Commission, the German Music Council, the German Federal Cultural Foundation, among others.

Other Music Academy e.V.

Bern is founding chair of Other Music Academy e.V., a non-profit organization with more than 100 members worldwide. Founded in 2006 to carry out Yiddish Summer Weimar, its mission has expanded to include the Other Music Academy and all of its projects.

The Other Music Academy (OMA)

In 2009, the city of Weimar gave Other Music Academy e.V. a 33-year lease on an abandoned school building in Ernst-Kohl-Strasse 23 to be a base for the organization's projects and activities. Bern envisioned for the building a new kind of institution dedicated to the

inclusion Inclusion or Include may refer to: Sociology * Social inclusion, action taken to support people of different backgrounds sharing life together. ** Inclusion (disability rights), promotion of people with disabilities sharing various aspects of lif ...

and empowerment of widely diverse social groups, through cooperative participation in transdisciplinary projects that combine artistic, scientific and social/political practices. The OMA is also the home for all of the current projects of Other Music Academy e.V., including Yiddish Summer, the Improvisation Project, the Open Café, the Middle Eastern Music and Cultures Project, and more. The OMA building is undergoing renovation parallel to the development of the OMA organizational structure. Presently, the OMA physical space comprises artist ateliers, workshop spaces, a music café and a small concert space. The OMA organizational structure will eventually comprise three, interlocking parts: i) a Creation Tank, where projects are conceived and managed, ii) a Curriculum of learning goals and tasks which flow directly from the projects, and iii) a Social Center, including the OMA Café, which encourages interaction among all project participants. A 300 m² space is currently being developed as a larger workshop and performance space. The OMA has received recognition and support from the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the City of Weimar and the State Chancellery of Thuringia, among others.

Present-Time Composition (PTC)

Bern is the creator of Present-Time Composition, a musical and educational approach informed by cognitive science that integrates the methods of improvisation and composition. He has taught workshops in PTC at the University of Cincinnati, the Conservatory of Music Franz Liszt (Weimar), to members of the

Pittsburgh Symphony The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) is an American orchestra based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The orchestra is resident at Heinz Hall, located in Pittsburgh's Cultural District. Since 2008, the orchestra's music director is Manfred Ho ...

and members of the Lyon Symphony, at the University of Arnhem, the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

, the Joseph Haydn Conservatory (Eisenstadt), at the

Exploratorium Berlin The Exploratorium is a museum of science, technology, and arts in San Francisco, California. Founded by physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer in 1969, the museum was originally located in the Palace of Fine Arts and was relocated in 2013 t ...

, through the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, in the context of Winter Edition (Weimar) and the OMA Improvisation Project, among many others. The fundamental principle of PTC is that highly complex musical decisions, normally thought to be the domain of composition, can be improvised in real time and communicated within a group, to produce a collectively improvised composition that is aesthetically comparable with music composed traditionally by individuals. This involves extensive training with step-by-step exercises that teach the musician how to reduce increasingly complex musical perceptions to apparently simple and immediate impulses. Currently, Bern is in the process of developing a certification program for PTC."Think Fast: An Introduction to Present-Time Composition," in "Researching Improvisation", 2016, Transcript Verlag

Activities in theater and dance

Bern is active as a composer and music director for theater and dance productions. Between 1994-96 he was Music Director at the Bremen Municipal Theater, where he composed and directed music for productions of Angels in America, The Threepenny Opera and Midsummer Night's Dream, among others. As a free-lancer, he has composed and directed music for theater productions at the Grillo Theater (Essen), the

Maxim Gorki Theater The Maxim Gorki Theatre () is a theatre in Berlin-Mitte named after the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky. In 2012, the Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit named Şermin Langhoff as the artist director of the theatre. History It is the oldest concert hall bui ...

(Berlin), the German National Theater (Weimar), the Municipal Theater of Dortmund, and the Luzern Municipal Theater, among others. He has worked with directors Josha Sobol, Silvia Armbruster, Constanza Lauterbach, Charlie Risse and Christian Friedrich, among others. In 1992, he created a score based exclusively on music composed in the Vilnius Ghetto for Josha Sobol’s own production of his play "Ghetto" in Essen. In 2001, he directed music for the first production of The Threepenny Opera in Yiddish translation by Michael Wex, directed at the Saidye Bronfman Center for the Arts in of Montreal by Bryna Wasserman. Bern also composes music for contemporary dance, including for the Eliza Miller Dance Company production of "Sideways" and "Märchen" in New York (2002), for which he was given an award by the Mary Flagler Carey Trust. In 2019 he composed and co-wrote the libretto with Yuri Vedenyapin for ''Di megile fun Vaymar'', an original music theater work that confronts

Itzik Manger Itzik Manger (30 May 1901, Czernowitz, then Austrian-Hungarian Empire – 21 February 1969, Gedera, Israel; ) was a prominent Yiddish language, Yiddish poet and playwright, a self-proclaimed folk bard, visionary, and 'master tailor' of the writ ...

’s ''Megile lider'' with texts by Goethe and other authors, and the work was performed that year during Yiddish Summer Weimar (https://vimeo.com/687612210). In 2022 he composed Glikl-oratorye (Glikl Oratorio: A HerStory) to a libretto in four languages (Old Yiddish, Eastern Yiddish, German and English) by Diana Matut, based on the memoirs of Glikl of Hameln. The oratorio was created in cooperation with the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar and performed by music students from throughout Germany in late April and early March 2022 in Weimar, Erfurt and Halle (https://www.glikl.eu).

Other professional activities

Bern has been on the faculty of

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

, the

and the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. He has been a guest lecturer at

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

, the

Pittsburgh University The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home ...

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

, the Conservatory of Music Franz Liszt (Weimar), the

School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

(University of London), the University of Arnhem, the

University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz () is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. It has been named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. it had approximately 32,000 students enrolled in around 100 a ...

, and the Belvedere Musik Gymnasium (Weimar), among others. He was Music Director for London KlezFest in the mid 2000s, and has taught on the faculty of Klezkanada, Klezkamp (New York), Moscow KlezFest, the International Klezmer Festival Fürth, the

Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków The Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków (, ) is an annual cultural event organized since 1988 in the once Jewish district of Kazimierz (part of Kraków) by the Jewish Culture Festival Society headed by Janusz Makuch, a self-described '' meshugeneh ...

, the Singer Festival in Warsaw, and many others.

Recordings and films

Bern has been featured on many audio recordings and films. The list below represents a selection: *Brave Old World **''Klezmer Music'' **''Beyond the Pale'' **''Blood Oranges'' **''Bless the Fire'' **''Dus gezang fin geto Lodz/Song of the Lodz Ghetto'' **''Hoffman's Doina'', with

Alex Jacobowitz Alex Jacobowitz (born 19 May 1960 in New York) is a classically trained concert artist and street performer who plays the marimba and xylophone. New York During the early 1980s he studied music at the State University of New York at Bingham ...

single work released as CD in 2019 **''Live in Concert (Film/DVD, directed by David Kaufman)'' **''Song of the Lodz Ghetto (Film/DVD, directed by David Kaufman)'' **''The New Klezmorim (Film/DVD, directed by David Kaufman)'' *The Other Europeans **''Splendor'' **''The Broken Sound (Film/DVD, directed by Yvonne & Wolfgang Andrae'' *The Semer Ensemble **''Rescued Treasure'' *Guy Klucevsek & Alan Bern **'Accordance' **''Notefalls'' *With Itzhak Perlman, Brave Old World, Andy Statman Trio **''In the Fiddler’s House'' **''Live in the Fiddler’s House'' **''In the Fiddler’s House (Film/DVD)'' *Bern, Brody & Rodach **''Triophilia'' *The Klezmer Conservatory Band **''Klez!'' *Alpen Klezmer **''Alpenklezmer'' **''Zum Meer'' *Voices of Ashkenaz *The Kadya Choir **The Young Kadyas CD (2022) **Featured in Die jungen Kadyas Documentary Film (2022)

Awards (selected)

(2022) * Thuringia Order of Merit (2017) *''Weimar Prize'' (2016) *General Project Support, German Federal Cultural Foundation, for Yiddish Summer Weimar (2016) *New States Funding, German Federal Cultural Foundation, for the Other Music Academy (2014–15) *German Record Critic’s Prize for "Splendor," The Other Europeans (2012) *German Record Critic’s Prize for "Sol Sajn," (2009) *''European Commission Award'' for Best Practices for the Roma Community (2009) *TFF Rudolstadt ''Ruth Lifetime Achievement Award'' (2009) *“Compass” Award for Best Practices, Jewish Music and Culture (2009) *German Music Council, ''1st Prize for Intercultural Music'' *German Record Critic’s Prize for “Blood Oranges” Brave Old World (1998)

Publications

*''Think Fast: An Introduction to Present-Time Composition'', in ''Researching Improvisation'', 2016, Transcript Verlag *''Klezmer Duets for Clarinet and Accordion'', with Christian Dawid, 2016, Universal Edition *''Klezmer Accordion'' for Intermediate Accordion, 2015, Universal Edition *''Liner notes to 12-CD collection Sol Sajn: Jewish Music in Germany'' ''1953-2009'', 2009, Bear Family *
Who is Weiskopf? Joshua Sobol’s Ghetto on East & West German Stages
', 2003 Paul Lecture, Indiana University Press *''Representing Jewish Identity'',2001, La Rasegna Mensile, Spring *''From Klezmer to New Jewish Music'', 1998, Mens en Melodie *''Remarks on “Ghetto” and "ghettos"'', 1993, Maxim Gorki Theater publication

References

External links

*Alan Bern website (with links to various projects)
www.alanbern.net
*The Other Music Academy website
www.othermusicacademy.eu
*Yiddish Summer website
www.yiddishsummer.eu
*Deutschlandradiokultur, Interview mit Alan Bern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw2POkqpSEE *Deutschlandradiokultur, ''Wie vielfältig ist die Jüdische Musik?'': http://www.deutschlandradiokultur.de/komponist-alan-bern-wie-vielfaeltig-ist-jiddische-musik.970.de.html?dram:article_id=325433 *many similar video and audio interview can be found with a google search
braveoldworld.com
(currently under construction) {{DEFAULTSORT:Bern, Alan 1955 births Living people Klezmer musicians American musical theatre composers American male musical theatre composers Indiana University Bloomington alumni Tufts University alumni University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music alumni