IN THE JOYOUS LIGHT

The TMF 2024 Symphony Hall Gala Concert Event

featuring world-renowned 

PIANIST JONATHAN BISS

Our Mission

The internationally recognized performing artists, composers, and scholars on our Advisory Board champion TMF’s mission around the world, and celebrated international artists — Yo-Yo Ma, Simone Dinnerstein, Garrick Ohlsson, members of outstanding orchestras and chamber groups, and many others — join us to:

  • perform and record music from Terezín

  • produce multi-media concert events in the U.S. and Europe

  • sponsor, premiere, and record new commissions

  • teach about Terezín and the Holocaust in schools and houses of worship

  • lead student and adult tours of Terezín and Prague

  • publish CDs and books

Terezín Music Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to amplifying the musical legacy of the artists imprisoned in Terezín (Theresienstadt), a WWII Nazi concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic. In Terezín, Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas, Viktor Ullmann, Hans Krasa, and many other artists composed and performed music that nourished their spirits amidst the great suffering all around them. As Ullmann famously wrote,

“Our will to create was commensurate with our will to live.”

At Terezín, the Nazis hid their atrocities behind a facade of art and culture, even as they transported the Terezín artists to Auschwitz. Our work honors these artists and all whose voices are tragically silenced.

At our inception in 1991, Terezin Music Foundation took on the urgent work of recovering, preserving, and performing the music created by the Terezín artists. TMF has made their musical legacy well known and has firmly established their works in the classical repertoire. 

Inspired by the Terezín artists, TMF also sponsors new commissions by emerging composers, to create a vibrant memorial, tribute, and voice to those who perished in the Holocaust and to all who are silenced by war or genocide.

TMF commissions fulfill the artistic and mentoring roles of Terezín composers, contribute to chamber music repertoire, and inspire future generations. Premieres are integrated into our concerts, recordings, and Holocaust education programs, performed by top-notch celebrity artists in renowned venues.

We hope our work is a poignant call to honor life, humanity, and the creative spirit.