G. SCHIRMER, INC. AND EXILARTE SIGN HISTORIC AGREEMENT TO RESTORE, PRESERVE AND PUBLISH HUNDREDS OF MUSICAL WORKS LOST IN THE HOLOCAUST

NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The American classical music publisher, G. Schirmer, Inc. (part of Wise Music Group) has signed an historic agreement with the Exilarte Center for Banned Music in Vienna, Austria, the world's leading center for the restoration, preservation and publication of composers banned by the Nazis during World War II.

G. Schirmer and Exilarte will make available more than 400 musical works — over 300 songs, 100 chamber music works, 50 orchestral works, several vocal and stage works, and numerous film scores, all of which have yet to be published. G. Schirmer will act as the publisher for all works restored by Exilarte and, via Wise Music Group's foundation, will provide continued financial support to Exilarte to guarantee the continued restoration, preservation, and publication of composers' works banned during the 1930s and 1940s. 

Robert Thompson, president of G. Schirmer/Wise Music, says, "The agreement between Exilarte and G. Schirmer will ensure that these composers who were silenced during World War II are not forgotten, their legacies restored, and their musical works brought to the public for the first time in performances and recordings."

Dr. Gerold Gruber, Exilarte founder and chairman of the Exilarte Center, says, "The Nazis wanted a world in which the music of Jewish composers would have been banned and forgotten. It is therefore our obligation to counteract these policies by rescuing the music of exiled composers from oblivion. The cooperation between Exilarte and Schirmer/Wise is of incredible value for future generations."

Founded in 2006 as an association to address the preservation of music that had been suppressed by the Nazi regime — largely written by Jewish composers who were targeted by the Third Reich's genocidal anti-Semitic policies — Exilarte in 2016 became a fully accredited research center and archive based on the historic campus of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Exilarte's senior researcher is Dr. Michael Haas — the Grammy Award-winning classical music producer and author of Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis (Yale University Press).

G. Schirmer, Inc. is the oldest continuously active North American music publisher, founded in 1861. For more information visit www.exilarte.org and www.wisemusicclassical.com

SOURCE Wise Music Group