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Preserving Forbidden Music

WUNC | By Laura Lee,
Anita Rao, Frank Stasio
Published December 9, 2014 at 11:37 AM EST
Musicologist Michael Haas helped uncover compositions by Jewish musicians who had been persecuted by the Nazis.
Musicologist Michael Haas helped uncover compositions by Jewish musicians who had been persecuted by the Nazis.
Musicologist Michael Haas helped uncover compositions by Jewish musicians who had been persecuted by the Nazis.
Musicologist Michael Haas helped uncover compositions by Jewish musicians who had been persecuted by the Nazis.

Host Frank Stasio talks to Michael Haas about his new book Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis that documents his journey to uncover and preserve these suppressed works.

As a young classical music producer in the1980s, Michael Haas was digging through East German archives researching the works of KurtWeill.

 In the process he stumbled upon a trove of compositions by Jewish musicians who had been persecuted by the Nazis. The music he discovered provided insight into the tremendous influence of Jewish composers before and during World War II. 

Host FrankStasiotalks to Michael Haas about his new bookForbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis (Yale University Press/ 2013) that documents his journey to uncover and preserve these suppressed works.  

Copyright 2014 North Carolina Public Radio
Laura Lee
Laura Lee began her journalism career as a producer and booker at NPR. She returned to her native North Carolina to manage The State of Things, a live daily statewide show on WUNC. After working as a managing editor of an education journalism start-up, she became a writer and editor at a national education publication, Edutopia. She then served as the news editor at Carolina Public Press, a statewide investigative newsroom. In 2022, she worked to build collaborative coverage of elections administration and democracy in North Carolina.

Laura received her master’s in journalism from the University of Maryland and her bachelor’s degree in political science and J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Anita Rao
Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
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Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
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