A Song for Esther
Concert by Candice Breitz
The conceptual concert titled A SONG FOR ESTHER took place at the invitation of Berlin-based artist Candice Breitz and was co-curated by Joanna Warsza with Laro Bogan as dramaturg.
Candice Breitz brought together an extraordinary line-up of musicians to honor the tireless antifascist activist and musician Esther Bejarano, who was born in 1924 and had made Hamburg her home after surviving the Holocaust. The concert featured the artists Peaches, Lie Ning, Rasha Nahas, Daniel Kahn, Malonda, Chicks on Speed / Jeremiah Day, Dornika, Polly Ott, Aeham Ahmad, Lili Sommerfeld, Dejan Jovanović and Oana Cătălina Chiţu, Die Anstalt, Ensemble Lebedik, the Sialan String Quartet, and – as the evening’s special guests – Joram Bejarano and Kutlu Yurtseven of Microphone Mafia. Microphone Mafia had played over a thousand concerts with Esther – the last of which took place just weeks before her death at the age of 96.
Esther was 18 years old when she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She survived because she was asked in the camp whether she could play the accordion – an instrument she had never held before. Out of sheer desperation, she managed to play the hit song BEL AMI and was accepted into the “Women’s Orchestra.” For decades afterwards, she avoided this song. Only towards the end of her life did she begin to perform it again – as an act of resistance. She described it as an “act of revenge,” a sign of her survival in the face of having been instrumentalized by the Nazi regime. The song is repeated in different interpretations during the concert.
A SONG FOR ESTHER considered the agency available to artists and musicians in times of repression and genocide. A century after Esther’s birth, the concert reflected on how her legacy of defiance continues to resonate today. The participating musicians each performed one song far removed from their usual repertoire – as an expression of embodied resistance. The concert was planned in dialogue with the Bejarano family.
A SONG FOR ESTHER toured to HAU HEBBEL AM UFER in June 2026.
Further information:
https://kampnagel.de/en/productions/candice-breitz
https://www.hebbel-am-ufer.de/en/programme/pdetail/candice-breitz-a-song-for-esther/
Press: