Fundamental thoughts

The Lichterfeld Foundation (« Stiftung Lichterfeld »), a trustee from the « Ruhrstiftung Bildung und Erziehung » (... training for education), has set its goal to (re)discover persecuted composers who lost their rights and were forced into exile, into ghettos, interned in camps or murdered.

This objective is firmly based on the quality of the music itself.

As Louis Aragon wrote in 1944 : « Rien n’est jamais acquis à l’homme », « Nothing is ever assured to man ».

The fate of these particular artists and their œuvre started with a deliberate stigmatization in violation of their fundamental rights. Today it is a prevailing necessity to make light of their somber destiny. It is unfathomable to witness the number of people who were and are victims because of their affiliation, their deliberate extraneousness. These artists were all under severe physical, mental, silent or verbal violence.

Any community who will pursue the culprits and forbid their action to reach their goal is honorable.

EchoSpore will bring light into the darkness of such virulent and expanding development. It will be a (further) biotope in order to permit this rich body of musical culture to regenerate itself, to unfold and grow.

The word « Echo » has several meanings (as in « Echo », Echo in « Music », « Echo Musikpreis » and Echo « Mythology »). And both Echo and Spore are found in various languages in a similar form : English, German, French, Dutch. In Spanish, one finds « eco-espora » and in Italian « eco-spora ».

The metaphore of the spore (« …serve to outlast adverse conditions and are extremely resistant… ») is superbly fitting to serve as an image to our project.