JCOM x Doron Rabinovici: Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit

In the 2026/27 season, we are continuing our collaboration with the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich (JCOM) as our ‘Orchestra in Residence’, opening the season with a moving evening of literature and music featuring a mini-drama created by writer and historian Doron Rabinovici especially for “MK: 100”. Narrated by four actors from the ensemble, the piece commemorates the persecuted and murdered artists and staff of the Münchner Kammerspiele who played a key role in shaping the city’s theatre and arts scene in the early 20th century. In the evening’s second half, the JCOM is being joined by Israeli soprano Chen Reiss to bring to life the golden age of Jewish music in Vienna: from the mid-19th century onward, the Austrian capital saw the flourishing of a remarkable Jewish arts and culture scene virtually unparalleled across Europe. Vienna was a place where Jewish artists, musicians and intellectuals found fertile ground for their creativity and, amidst the traditional waltzes, the artistry of the ‘Lieder’ and late-Romantic musical idioms, a multifaceted panorama of Viennese Modernism unfurled around the figure of Gustav Mahler with works by Alexander Zemlinsky, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Josefine Winter and Alfred Grünfeld.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1961 and now based in Vienna, Doron Rabinovici is one of the leading intellectual voices of the German-speaking world. His multi-award-winning works explore themes of memory, history and societal responsibility.

By combining Rabinovici’s astute, precise language with the JCOM’s musical sensitivity, an evening unfolds that promises not merely to recall the past, but to bring it vividly to life in a shared reflection on art, memory and the fragility of freedom.