Vienna to pay tribute to Italian-Jewish composers

(AGI) Vienna, Jan 23 - Aldo Finzi, Leone Sinigaglia and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco were Italian-Jewish composers who were persecuted by Italy's Fascist regime and whose works were banned. To mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Italian Cultural Institute ( IIC) in Vienna will pay homage to them by holding a concert on Thursday, January 26 in Vienna. The French soprano Erminie Blondel, accompanied by pianist Carole Villiaumey, will sing their songs. The initiative was launched in conjunction with Erweckte Stimmen Forum-Wien, an organization engaged in re-descovering and re-elaborating the works of authors who fell victim to European totalitarianism in the 1920s. The Italian composers are part of this circle of talents that, following the enactment of racial laws in 1928, were deprived of their rights and were either exiled or detained by the Gestapo, the Nazi political police, during the war. Some of them died in prison.