Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on February 9, 2026 in order to attend this event.
Please join the East Central European Center and the Harriman Institute for a book talk by Mackenzie Pierce. Moderated by Alexandra Birch.
This event explores the aftermath of war and genocide in 1940s Poland through the lens of the country’s classical music scene. Disputing the assumption that the late 1940s was primarily a time of the imposition of communist ideology in musical circles, Pierce explores the myriad forces that led musicians into cooperation with the state, in ways that often replicated prewar discourses and priorities of the musical community. In addition to considering these forces of institutional continuity across the war, he also explores the process of selection and narration of wartime music-making during the late 1940s in ways that erected powerful, long-lasting narratives of aesthetic and musical growth across wartime trauma. The presentation and seminar will be based on his recent book, “Sounds of Survival: Polish Music and the Holocaust” (University of California Press, 2025), a selection of which will be circulated in advance.
Mackenzie Pierce is assistant professor of musicology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and author of “Sounds of Survival: Polish Music and the Holocaust” (University of California Press, 2025). He is a scholar of twentieth-century musical culture in Eastern Europe, with a focus on Polish-Jewish relations and classical music. Active in both the US and Europe, his research has been supported through fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Please email disability@columbia.edu to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.
