Suppression and Expression: A Concert Exploring Art, Mental Health, and Intergenerational Trauma

The REgenerate Music Project performs music of composers labeled “degenerate artists” and suppressed by the Nazis in 20th Century Germany. The string quartet, comprising musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, seeks to keep those composers’ music alive and to honor their lives. In this concert, the quartet will perform pieces that resonate with the artwork of Norman Klenicki, a self-taught artist and son of Holocaust survivors, who uses his visual art to express and address the symptoms of his bipolar disorder triggered by the legacy of injuries his mother incurred at the hands of Nazi death camp guards. In 2019, the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics & Health Law created a virtual exhibition of his artwork: Experience, Integration, Expression: The Work of Norman Klenicki. In November 2026, an in-person exhibit of Klenicki’s work will be open in the gallery space of the HSLS Library of Scaife Hall on the University of Pittsburgh campus (3501 Terrace Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, enter at Terrace and Lothrop Streets, Mezzanine Level). This concert celebrates the opening of that exhibit and the role of music and visual art in expressing and addressing the mental health challenges of inter-generational trauma. Register here. The concert and parking are free. Contact for additional information: [email protected] Primary Sponsors: Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh & University of Pittsburgh Bioethics and Health Humanities Fund