TŌN in Germany: A Concert of Conscience and Peace
Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now Lead Historic WWII Memorial at Former Nazi Grounds
Felix Mendelssohn’s music reclaims Nuremberg’s Congress Hall in a sweeping act of remembrance, diplomacy, and artistic defiance
Nuremberg, Germany – May 9, 2025
On the evening of May 8, 2025, at the exact hour marking 80 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany, American conductor Leon Botstein led The Orchestra Now (TŌN) in a memorial concert of rare symbolic and political power. The venue: Nuremberg’s Congress Hall, once the ceremonial heart of the Nazi regime. The message: reconciliation, vigilance, and the enduring force of culture to resist tyranny.
Under the title “Grant Us Peace,” the program featured the music of Felix Mendelssohn—banned under the Third Reich—performed by a multinational ensemble of young musicians from Bard College’s graduate training orchestra. Joined by violinist Anna Reszniak, the Chamber Choir of the University of Music Nuremberg, and under the patronage of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the performance drew an audience that included survivors of the war and a distinguished roster of civic and diplomatic leaders.
Among those in attendance and speaking from the stage were:
• Mayor Marcus König, City of Nuremberg
• Lucius Hemmer, Intendant of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, concert host
• James Miller, U.S. Consul General in Munich
• Christian Wulff, former President of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Julia Lehner, Nuremberg’s Vice Mayor for Culture
• Ihor Terekhov, Mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine (Nuremberg’s sister city)
• And surviving eyewitnesses of May 9, 1945
Botstein’s presence lent the event historical continuity and intellectual urgency. Born in 1946 to Polish-Jewish refugees, he has spent decades reviving the works of silenced composers and advocating for music as a tool of civic education. “This hall was built to glorify criminal power,” he said from the podium. “We use it tonight to remind ourselves that freedom is not a given, and that culture must never be neutral in the face of injustice.”
For TŌN—based at Bard College and performing regularly at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fisher Center at Bard, and other New York venues—this European debut signaled a new chapter. “To see these young musicians play Mendelssohn here, at this time, in this place,” said Botstein, “is not just artistic success. It is moral resonance.”
As the final lines of Verleih uns Frieden echoed beneath the Nazi stonework, the audience—German, American, Ukrainian—rose not only in applause but in shared recognition. Memory, art, and democracy had, for one night, found perfect harmony.
Photo by Anton Doppelbauer