Now is the right time to become an American Federation of Musicians member. From ragtime to rap, from the early phonograph to today's digital recordings, the AFM has been there for its members. And now there are more benefits available to AFM members than ever before, including a multi-million dollar pension fund, excellent contract protection, instrument and travelers insurance, work referral programs and access to licensed booking agents to keep you working.

As an AFM member, you are part of a membership of more than 80,000 musicians. Experience has proven that collective activity on behalf of individuals with similar interests is the most effective way to achieve a goal. The AFM can negotiate agreements and administer contracts, procure valuable benefits and achieve legislative goals. A single musician has no such power.

The AFM has a proud history of managing change rather than being victimized by it. We find strength in adversity, and when the going gets tough, we get creative - all on your behalf.

Like the industry, the AFM is also changing and evolving, and its policies and programs will move in new directions dictated by its members. As a member, you will determine these directions through your interest and involvement. Your membership card will be your key to participation in governing your union, keeping it responsive to your needs and enabling it to serve you better. To become a member now, visit www.afm.org/join.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE AFM



Home » Recent News » Auschwitz Music Brought to Life By U-M Professor and Students


Auschwitz Music Brought to Life By U-M Professor and Students

  -  

Last summer Patricia Hall, a music theory professor at the University of Michigan, traveled to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to take a look at their music manuscripts. She came across a piece that had been arranged and performed by prisoners in the Auschwitz I men’s orchestra.

The piece, one of the few works arranged and performed at Auschwitz to remain in tact, is titled “The Most Beautiful Time of Life” (Die Schönste Zeit des Lebens). It features a light foxtrot feel and is based on a song by German film composer Franz Grothe.

Back in Michigan, Hall met with U-M Contemporary Directions Ensemble conductor Professor Oriol Sans, and they decided to make a professional recording of the piece. “This recording is highly significant,” states Hall. “We’re bringing this work to life, hearing it as closely as possible to what it would have sounded like at Auschwitz I in 1943.”

In October, the recording was taken at the U-M Duderstadt Center. It will become part of the collection at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. On November 30, a live performance of the piece was given at Hankinson Hall on U-M’s North Campus.

Two of the three prisoners who arranged the piece have been identified by Hall based on prisoner numbers on the manuscript. Antoni Gargul was released from Auschwitz in 1943 and Maksymilian Pilat, who was moved to Sachsenhausen in 1944, and played in the Baltic Philharmonic after the war.







NEWS