is co-founder and chairman of othermusic e.V. and creator and artistic director of Yiddish Summer Weimar and Winter Edition. He is a composer/arranger, pianist, accordionist, educator, cultural activist and philosopher. He is co-founder and director of "Brave Old World," founder and director of "The Other Europeans" and "Diaspora Redux," and he also performs with Bern, Brody & Rodach and with Guy Klucevsek. His education included classical piano with Paul Badura-Skoda and Leonard Shure, jazz with Karl Berger, the Art Ensemble of Chicago,  Anthony Braxton and others, contemporary music with John Cage, Frederic Rzewski, Joel Hoffman and others, and philosophy and cognitive science with Dan Dennett. He received his master's degree in Philosophy and his doctorate degree in music composition.
In 2009, he was given the Ruth Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as a musician and educator and achievement with "Brave Old World".
>> www.alanbern.net

has been part of the Yiddish Summer Weimar management team since 2004, and part of the Winter Edition management team since 2008.
She has been an associate for press and public relations in the Department of Planning and Communication at the Erfurt Technical University, and has studied journalism at the German Journalism School (Berlin) since 2007. Between 2004-2006 she was worked in the Kulturbüro LaRete (Ettersburg). She studied art history and sociology from 1996-2004 at the University of Jena and wrote her master's thesis on "Vogue 1950-70. The Staging of Femininity. A visual history of the development of fashion photography."
She is responsible for public relations and project management.

I am an art historian and arts administrator. Following my Master's degree in Art History, Psychology and History at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany in 2001, I began work as an arts administrator for Kulturbüro LaRete, Weimar, organizing European exhibitions (überMENSCHEN, EUROPA VIDEO ARTE, Coniugazioni) and festivals (Notti Italiane, Klezmer Wochen Weimar, Yiddish Summer Weimar).
I‘m also responsible for concept development, fundraising, public relations and management for several non-profit organizations (othermusic e.V., DIGIT Deutsch-Italienische Gesellschaft in Thüringen e.V., VDIG Vereinigung Deutsch-Italienischer Kultur-Gesellschaften e.V., VDKC Verband Deutscher Konzertchöre e.V., Kuratorium Schloss Ettersburg e.V.). From 2007 to 2010 I was coordinator of the 90th anniversary of the Bauhaus (Bauhausjahr 2009) in the "ImPuls-Region Weimar - Jena - Erfurt".
Since 2002 I am connected with and dedicated to Yiddish Summer Weimar (at that time „Klezmer Wochen Weimar”) and I am founding member of other music e.V. and since 2005 member of the board.
From March 2012 through April 2013 I'm working on a very special "project," devoting my time to my baby, Nils

Johannes Paul Gräßer joined the othermusic e.V. team as an associate in December 2009.
His musical focus has been klezmer and East European music since 1999. He is a member and initiator of several ensembles performing folk music, classical music and experimental music. In addition to various solo projects, he also plays violin with the Modern Klezmer Quartet and was a founding member of The Painted Bird. He is also the organizer and creator of cultural projects. The core value of his work is "to reflect on what is essential and fundamental with a basic honesty that allows the audience to find itself."
>> www.jpg-online.de

We're happy to welcome Marlene Damm, who has been with us since September 2012! Marlene is spending her Volunteer Cultural Year with us. Her responsibilities include supporting the management team and being the contact person for participants in this year's Winter Edition and Yiddish Summer. She's using her year with othermusic e.V. to prepare for studying at the university.
"I'm very thankful for every new experience that I have here and I expect to continue to be active in the organization and to have a lot of fun doing so.“

grew up and attended school in the beautiful surrounding of Hesse. After having spent some time abroad in New Zealand, she started studying applied cultural studies at the university of Lüneburg.
2009 she visited Weimar for the first time, taking care of a group of international young people during a work camp at the Yiddish Summer. Once experienced the extraordinary atmosphere at the Yiddish Summer, Judith returned in the following years to support the mangagement team during summer. Also in this year, she will be a part of the team, doing her best, to make the Yiddish Summer a unique experience for everyone.

organizies volunteer activities for the other music team, among other contributions: "I'd like my work to help develop a lively and multifacted volunteer culture and to encourage contact with and among diverse people." I came to Yiddish Summer Weimar the first time to the symposium Tradition and New Impulses: "Something special is going on here, I'm coming back," that was immediatedly clear to me. "The holistic, multi-level, lively, serious and at the same time humorful way of working; the mixture of well-grounded knowledge, curiousity and openness to new things and the attitude towards others inspired and moved me."
In her work as Fine Artist, projects on identity and foreignness and socially marginal subjects such as sadness led her to a holistic understanding of art. "One of my concerns is to find forms and languages that create connections. What interests me is not the beautiful image, but what IS and what HAPPENS." Through further training in Art Therapy, Non-Violent Communication and Music Improvisation, she is searching for connections between different disciplines and forms of action, communication and awareness. "I find it wonderful to participate in othermusic e.V.'s projects in different roles: as singer and participant in workshops, as co-worker and as volunteer.

I come from Leipzig, where I studied English and Spanish at the university following my final secondary-school examinations. My studies included half a year in Great Britain at Manchester Metropolitan University. After completing a master's degree, I began voluntary work as a television editor. Working with different production companies, I created video content for television stations and corporations, which I immensely enjoyed and which brought me into contact with an incredible number of people. Since 2007 I've been a freelance journalist specializing in writing and press relations.
In 2007 I also first became acquaintanced with Yiddish Summer and worked as its press relations director. The experience was fascinating, expanding my horizons and developing me further professionally and personally: I learned a lot, not only about music but also about the connections among cultures and religions, remarkable in a small city like Weimar. That's why I'm with the Yiddish Summer Weimar Festival today.

studied Visual Communication and worked professionally in a Tokyo design agency before coming to Berlin, where she studied at the Hochschule der Künste (today the Universität der Künste). After getting her degree in 1993, she worked as an artist on sound and site installations and also as a freelance graphic designer.
Since 2010, she has been responsible for the visual image of Yiddish Summer, Winter Edition and othermusic e.V., including internet presence, posters, t-shirts and more.
She has long been interested in Yiddish dance and has given workshops on the subject in Japan at "Osaka University" and "Japanese‐Jewish Friendship and Study Society in Kobe."
Since 2006, she's been a member of the Berlin-based dance ensemble "TarantaScalza" (Tarantella – traditional Southern Italian dance) with which she has performed at many festivals.
>> www.talkingsine.de
>> www.tarantella-scalza.de