A Bar Mitzvah project launched by a young violinist in Baltimore has led to the donation of a significant collection of rediscovered, formerly suppressed music to the Peabody Institute’s Arthur Friedheim Library. The initiative, begun by Micah Seliger — now 13 years old — was inspired by a 2022 Baltimore Symphony concert featuring a work by the once-banned composer Franz Schreker.
Micah, who studies violin at the Peabody Preparatory and whose grandfather survived the Holocaust, became intrigued by the history of music targeted and silenced under the Nazi regime. When planning began for his 2023 Bar Mitzvah, he chose to pursue a tzedakah project centered on raising awareness about these forgotten works.
Initial attempts to locate suitable repertoire proved challenging. Under the guidance of his composition teacher, Michael Rickelton, Micah discovered that many suppressed scores are difficult to find, and orchestral parts are often unavailable. Rickelton put Micah in touch with Peabody library director Kathleen DeLaurenti, who referred him to UCLA music librarian Matthew Vest, a specialist in suppressed music. Vest directed Micah to Forbidden Music Regained (FMR), the international restoration project of the Leo Smit Foundation in the Netherlands.
Through FMR’s Artistic Director, Eleonore Pameijer, and Donemus Publishing’s Aleksandra Marković, Micah located repertoire for performance and learned about the multivolume series of “regained” scores. He decided not only to perform suppressed works, but also to raise funds to improve access to these materials for other musicians.
Throughout late 2024 and early 2025, Micah prepared Bob Hanf’s Violin Sonata I – a work by a Dutch Jewish composer murdered in Auschwitz in 1944 – while raising money through performances, program notes, and a GoFundMe campaign. He presented the piece at Peabody, at school concerts, in his synagogue, and at his Bar Mitzvah.
In total, Micah raised nearly $3,300, enough to purchase all six currently published volumes of Forbidden Music Regained. Micah hopes the project will encourage more students, ensembles, and educators to explore and perform music lost to censorship and persecution, ensuring that formerly silenced voices are heard again. With coordination from DeLaurenti and Marković, the volumes have now been donated to the Arthur Friedheim Library, where they will be available to musicians at Peabody and, via interlibrary loan, to performers and researchers across the United States.
Kathleen DeLaurenti, Director of Arthur Friedheim Library:
The Arthur Friedheim Library at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University was thrilled to collaborate with Donemus, the Leo Smit Foundation, and the Netherlands Music Institute on adding this remarkable collection to our library. This marks our first partnership with a publisher on acquiring digital scores for our library users; we are grateful to Donemus for joining us to pioneer a new potential partnership to expand access to digital music scores for music researchers and students at Peabody.
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention