Bronek's Orchestra

Orig. Broneks orkester

Commission by the Royal Norwegian Marines' Music Orchestra

Music by Bjørn Morten Christophersen

Text by Terje J Tveit

Produced by the Royal Norwegian Marines' Music Orchestra

Directed and Designed by Terje J Tveit

Produced with the generous support of

• – Arts Council Norway
• – Fritt Ord, Norway
• – Norwegian Composers’ Fund
• – Vestfold County Municipality
• – Vestfoldmuséene

26 November 1942: Herman Sachnowitz is among 532 prisoners on board the DS Donau. The human cargo is to be transported from Norway to Auschwitz. Only nine of the prisoners return at the end of the war.

Through various sources and testimonies, the dehumanisation and horrors inside the concentration camps are relived through Herman Sachnowitz' voice and his indomitable will to survive as a member of the prisoner camp orchestra in Birkeanu-Auschwitz. 

This stage production is commissioned by the Royal Norwegian Marines' Music Orchestra (Den Kongelige Norske Marines Musikkorps), in which composer Bjørn Morten Christophersen's and author/theatre director Terje J Tveit's amalgamate text and music into a drama. A one-person-account becomes a collective narrative. A terrifying chapter in the world history addresses the present calling out the ongoing crimes against humanity - of extermination, deportation and murder in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan - and is an eternal reminder of man's relativistic morality and capacity for evil.