2025

Part 1: We are starting off the episode with Angela Brussel's poetic essay echo of a sound removed.

Angela Brussel wrote this piece during her residency as a distinguished visitor at Villa Aurora in December of 2024. Beirut, where Angela lives was under bombardment.

While geopolitical forces brought her to California, she unknowingly created the last account of living in the artist residence before the Palisades Fire broke out.

Part 2 - Outerlands by Hanno Leichtmann

During his 2021 stay at the Villa Aurora, Hanno Leichtmann composed a four-channel sound installation for the historic Villa Aurora organ. The organ was built in 1929 by the Artcraft Organ Company Santa Monica, CA and fully restored in 2010. It is comparable to theatre organs in cinemas of the silent era and is not only equipped with a wide range of organ pipes, but also with an effects section, a beautiful 49-piece marimbaphone, and 25 tubular bells in the echo chamber, which can all be played mechanically from the console. Additionally, the organ was outfitted with a MIDI input in 2010 and therefore can be remote-controlled by any MIDI device such as a computer program, a MIDI controller or any hardware sequencer. Hanno Leichtmann recorded the instrument in all possible ways: improvising on the organ, playing the pipes, bells, the marimbaphone and the effects section from the console, or midi-controlled from various DAW sequencers. In addition to these techniques, Leichtmann also recorded the percussion section using different mallets and various metal, wooden and plastic tools, capturing diverse experimental percussion sounds.

Part 1 - POLITUNES

This episode starts with a piece by Sergey Khismatov, a composer and multimedia artist whose works are presented at concert halls, art exhibitions and film festivals worldwide.  

His multi-focused media work explores the spatial distribution of sound.
 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, he invented a new audio-visual format called Video Ensemble. This innovative medium intertwines spatial sound distribution with visual elements, creating intricate, mosaic-like structures.
In 2023, while a fellow at Villa Aurora, Sergey worked on the Video Ensemble composition POLITUNES.
In Khismatov’s words:
POLITUNES is a project about dictators and populists who keep singing the same tunes over and over again.
More than 100 political figures took part — unwillingly but truthfully.
All the sounds in this video come directly from the politicians you see on screen.
Only unprocessed sounds and videos were used.
Though we obviously feel the audio of this piece stands on its own, you are encouraged to watch the video online.

Part 2 - Feuchtwanger Refreshed

Sergey Khismatov's work will be followed by the second part of our latest Feuchtwanger Refreshed edition. Feuchtwanger Refreshed is an ongoing collaboration between USC's School of Dramatic Arts MFA Dramatic Writing Program, USC Libraries, and Villa Aurora. Graduate playwrights and their instructors present short scenes inspired by archival holdings and writings from USC's Feuchtwanger Memorial Library.  

In this episode we hear three pieces performed earlier this year at The Wende Museum as part of “The Fires Last Time”. Written and performed by student playwrights of the MFA Dramatic Writing Program at USC, these three excerpts take different perspectives on what it means to be home, and the way in which that definition can create a sanctuary for people in exile.



• Field Trip by Alessandra Viegas   

• The Comics Section by Jason Grasl   

• The Whole Palisades is Lost by Moriyah Dichter

Part 2 is connecting the dots of Mann’s words and his artistic legacy in the sound artwork by Grammy-nominated musician Kokayi.

Part II

In this episode we hear the final pieces performed as part of Feuchtwanger Refreshed “The Fire Last Time.”  Written and performed by student playwrights of the MFA Dramatic Writing Program at USC, these dramatic vignettes present different perspectives on what it means to be home, and the way that definition of home can create sanctuary for people in exile.

Remind Me of Someone by Mayookh Barua   
A Whole Life In… by Nena Martins  

Feuchtwanger Refreshed is an ongoing collaboration between USC's School of Dramatic Arts MFA Dramatic Writing Program, USC Libraries, and Villa Aurora through which graduate playwrights and their instructors present short scenes inspired by archival holdings and writings from USC's Feuchtwanger Memorial Library.  

The edition “The Fire Last Time” was organized by USC Feuchtwanger Memorial Library and Villa Aurora, performed at the Glorya Kaufman Community Center at the Wende Museum on April 29, 2025.

Thomas Mann's Antifascist Radio Addresses, 1940-1945: Listen, Germany!

As part of the ongoing programs honoring Thomas Mann’s 150th anniversary, this episode features a conversation with literary scholars Jeffrey High and Elaine Chen, editors of Thomas Mann’s Antifascist Radio Addresses, 1940–1945 (Camden House), the first English language translation of Mann’s anti-fascist BBC broadcasts.

Although it was illegal to listen to foreign radio in Nazi Germany, many people secretly tuned in to Thomas Mann’s addresses. Shortwave radios were common, and the BBC’s German-language service could often be picked up, especially at night. The Nazi regime declared listening to “enemy radio” a criminal offense and threatened severe penalties, but enforcement was uneven and difficult to control. As a result, thousands of Germans secretly tuned in, seeking uncensored information about the war and enjoying the sense connection from exile.

These speeches urged resistance to fascism and established Mann as the most influential German voice abroad. His belief that the “social renewal of democracy” was both the condition and the guarantee of victory remains strikingly relevant today.

JEFFREY L. HIGH is Professor in German Studies, Comparative Literature, and Honors at California State University, Long Beach and Guest Professor at the German Summer School of the Pacific at Portland State University.

ELAINE CHEN is a PhD candidate in the Departments of Germanic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, MA.

Recorded on August 12, 2025 at the Thomas Mann House

Thomas Mann’s Antifascist Radio Addresses, 1940–1945. Listen, Germany! (2025)
Edited by: Jeffrey L. High , Elaine Chen and Hans Rudolf Vaget
Preface by: Frido Mann  

Felix Kubin’s Mother in the Fridge (2012) radio play turns a kitchen into a stage where a mother’s voice emerges from cupboard, pot, bin, and box—offering brisk English-lesson asides and comic, uncanny counsel. An Oedipal burlesque assembled from everyday sound and crisp montage.

Following Mother in the Fridge is an excerpt from Kubin’s kinetic sound collage Flow. Created during Kubin’s 2022 Villa Aurora residency, the sonic landscape of this piece is built from recordings of Los Angeles poets and writers juxtaposed with city atmospheres like hummingbirds, traffic, and helicopter rotor wash.

In part 3 of this week’s episode of “if the house could speak”, poet Yesika Salgado reads Diaspora and Reservoir. Her voice is tracing migration, care, and the hydrology of Los Angeles, mapping time in place, gathering a narrative of what the city holds and what it lets go.

Felix Kubin is a Hamburg-born composer, radio dramatist, and media artist whose work spans futurist pop, electroacoustic composition, and experimental broadcasting. Kubin also runs the label Gagarin Records.

More info about Felix Kubin's current and ongoing projects:

http://felixkubin.com/

Yesika Salgado is a Los Angeles–born Salvadoran poet and activist. Salgado is the author of the collections Corazón, Tesoro, and Hermosa and has had work featured by The New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

More infos about Yesika Salgado's current and ongoing projects:

https://www.yesikasalgado.com/

A Feuchtwanger Home Movie & Whispering Bells

The first part of this episode features the soundtrack of an unreleased film, shot by fellow German emigré Albrecht Joseph, which offers a rare glimpse into the life of Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger at their Los Angeles home, Villa Aurora. The couple share thoughts on their daily rhythms, their collection of books, and the ubiquity of the automobile in Los Angeles, the audience is treated to their reflections on the Los Angeles of that time.

The second part of this episode was recorded at the opening of Whispering Bells. Whispering Bells is a commemorative group exhibition celebrating 30 years of Villa Aurora’s artist residency program, featuring works by past and present fellows.  Held at O-Town House, located in the historic Grenada Building the show highlights Villa Aurora’s transatlantic and local cultural ties. Named after the drought-tolerant flower which blooms after fire, the exhibition symbolizes resilience, renewal, and the enduring legacy of the nearly 500 resident artists who have passed through Villa Aurora. It also marks the beginning of an annual series promoting future fellows’ work in Los Angeles. Friedel Schmoranzer gives an introduction and then Andrew King and Doreen Kutzke of YodelRoar perform their unique bagpipe/yodeling duo.

Thomas Ankersmit Double Feature

Part 1

Figueroa Terrace is a 37-minute composition by Dutch artist and composer, and former Villa Aurora resident, Thomas Ankersmit.  Ankersmit is one of the foremost contemporary practitioners of the Serge Modular Synthesizer, an instrument originally designed at CalArts in the early 1970s by Serge Tcherepnin as a democratic alternative to the costly modular systems of its era — a “people’s synthesizer” intended for communal experimentation and education.
In the winter of 2011–2012, Ankersmit was invited to CalArts to record new music with the school’s restored Black Serge system, a unique instrument built and continually modified by generations of students. The sessions took place both at CalArts in Valencia and in Los Angeles, culminating in a premiere at REDCAT, Downtown.
In Figueroa Terrace, the city’s presence is abstract yet tangible: expansive, unstable, bathed in voltage and heat. The piece drifts between near-silence and roaring density, mirroring Los Angeles’ vastness and volatility, its electric hum, its distant horizons, and its layered history of art and invention. 


Part 2

Thomas Ankersmit and Valerio Tricoli
Zwerm Voor Tithonus is a track from Thomas Ankersmit and Valerio Tripoli’s collaborative album Forma II. Their compositions on this album feature layers of static, hum and dissonance, as well as electroacoustic field recordings that range from metal foil floating on ultrasonic sound-beams to mechanical clickers recorded in abandoned radar domes at Teufelsberg, Germany, a site that once housed a Cold War spy station.

Boccalero

"If you pray more than 15 minutes a day,” she would say, “there’s probably something wrong with you. If you have your deity in your heart, there’s no reason to beg.”

Written and recorded during her stay at the Villa Aurora, Laura Stellacci’s radio piece is an audio-notebook, of sorts, compiled while researching a part of East Los Angeles’ local history. It is an evocation of the figure of an unconventional Franciscan nun, Sister Karen Boccalero (1933-1997), and the mark she left on Self-Help Graphics and Art, the experimental printmaking center that she co-founded with the queer Mexican artists Carlos Bueno and Antonio Ibañez in Boyle Heights. Her fictional stream of consciousness revisits several moments in time, like the brief period when SHG hosted a punk club in its basement: the Vex would become an important musical incubator for Chicano and Latin/x punk bands in the 1980s. The organisation continues to be an important cultural center for Chicano Art today, encouraging and supporting aspiring artists.

Weimar Under the Palms. Pacific Palisades, German Exiles, and the Invention of Hollywood

Recounting a story of glamor and great minds, Thomas Blubacher tells of the history of German-speaking exiles that is still alive today, going on a foray through the film industry, taking us on a journey to this special place which was so recently devastated by fire. Many of the homes in this book have now gone, but Marta Feuchtwanger’s Villa Aurora and the Thomas Mann house still stand as a testament to luck, resilience, and history.

Thomas Blubacher reads from the English translation by Elisabeth Lauffer, followed by a Q&A moderated by Claudia Gordon, Director of Villa Aurora.