IL: Film URSULA MAMLOK: MOVEMENTS, March 27, 2024

In advance of contemporary chamber music group Damselfly Trio’s April 3rd concert, which foregrounds works by Ursula Mamlok, join us for a screening of Ursula Mamlok: Movements. In this documentary, filmmaker Anne Berrini offers a sensitive examination of the German-Jewish composer’s life and the music that played such a central part in it.

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About Ursula Mamlok
Born to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1923, Mamlok was a precocious, talented teenager with a single dream: becoming a composer. Then Germany descended into Nazi oppression, and by the time Mamlok was sixteen, she and her parents made a last-minute escape to Ecuador. Dissatisfied with her new home’s lack of musical perspective, the teenager wrote letters to musicians abroad, one of which gained her a scholarship to the Mannes School of Music in New York City. Thus, as a 17-year-old she came to New York, alone, with no money, unable to speak English, and ready to embark on a career that was both trailblazing and successful.

Mamlok would remain in New York City for the next sixty-six years, soaking up inspiration from some of the most important European musicians who were living in exile, as well as from composers from the American avant-garde. She taught composition at the Manhattan School of Music for almost forty years, and her award-winning works became part of the city’s concert life.

In 2006, at age 83, Ursula Mamlok returned to Berlin, the city of her birth: a decision that presented her with new challenges, both musical and emotional.

Advanced registration is required, and please bring a photo ID for check-in. Please note that this event will take place in the Michigan Room, on the 3rd Floor of 150 N. Michigan Ave., in the same building as the Goethe-Institut Chicago.

Presented in partnership with the Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Foundation.