The Disorientalists
Klezmer cabaret | Oriental ragtime | Historic theater
Yuriy Gurzhy (RotFront, Russendisko, Born in UA)
Daniel Kahn (Daniel Kahn and The Painted Bird, Brothers Nazarof, Semer Ensemble)
Marina Frenk (Marina & Kapelsky, Real Baba Dunyah)
“Who Was Essad Bey?” (premiere in Hanover)
The Disorientalists rock through the abysses of a bizarre life on the trail of the mysterious and legendary figure of this “frontiersman from the Caucasus”.
The trio The Disorientalists follows the convoluted life of Essad Bey, whose biography reflects the contradictions and upheavals of an entire century.
Born in Kyiv in 1905, the son of an oil industrialist and a Bolshevik, Lev Nussimbaum fled with his father from Baku via Istanbul to Berlin in 1920 to escape the consequences of the October Revolution. In 1922, he converted to Islam and henceforth called himself Essad Bey. Under this name – as well as under the pseudonym Kurban Said – he wrote numerous works, including the famous novel Ali and Nino, the love story of a Christian woman and a Muslim man in Azerbaijan. In addition to novels, he also wrote biographies about Mohammed and Stalin, as well as a book about Mussolini, which he had begun but left unfinished. Although he was banned from publishing as a Jew, he sympathized with the National Socialists, fled to Italy and died in Positano in 1942 at the age of just 37. He left behind an extensive body of work – and many mysteries. The Disorientalists explore these in their numbered revue.
The event is part of the event series “HörMal! Monument and music in the UNESCO City of Music Hannover” takes place.
HörMal! Monument and music in the UNESCO City of Music Hannover is a series of 13 events in very different monuments related to music in Hanover, where participants can get to know old and comparatively young monuments. They range from explicit places of music history to places of music production and dissemination to places of musical training and general musical education.
