Artist: Talya Feldman
Sound Design: Carlos Ángel Luppi
Featuring: Ozan Ata Canani, Berivan Kaya, and Microphone Mafia
Voice Excerpts: Mitat Özdemir, Mevlüde Genç, Aynur Satır, Gamze Kubaşık, Orhan Çalışır, Cihat Genç, Sibel İ., Fatma Ceylan, Malek Ahmad, Solidaritätskreis Mouhamed Lamine Dramé, Árwy (Piano), and Esther Bejarano 
Research Support: Ali Şirin, Kutlu Yurtseven, Bengü Kocatürk-Schuster, Birgül Demirtaş, Hatice and Kâmil Genç, Orhan Çalışır, Fadila Ahmad, Katharina Ruhland, Michi Sturm, Anke Hoffstadt, and Jelle Post


“Listen To Me: This Song is a Monument” is a sound collage of protests, city soundscapes, instrumentals, interviews, speeches, and musical recordings by local musicians and legends Ozan Ata Canani, Berivan Kaya and Microphone Mafia. By amplifying the audio so often excluded from historical archives and the public space “Listen To Me: This Song is a Monument” offers an alternative narrative to the history of North-Rhine Westphalia that spans over the last several decades. It expresses sound and listening as political tools for overcoming structures of power, those all too quick to silence marginalized communities fighting for equality, justice, and remembrance.
Berivan Kaya’s adaptation of ‘Rose Marie’ originally performed by Bora Ayanoğlu in 1979 hints at the history of the Gastarbeiter in NRW, their feelings of homesickness, their music as a means for self-empowerment and connection, and their arrival by train from countries like Turkey and Greece to the factories where their fight for worker’s rights led to a series of strikes in 1973 later known as the ‘Wildcat’ strikes. These protests changed the course of history in NRW, as did the racist arson attacks in Duisburg, Solingen, and the NSU murders and bomb attacks in Dortmund and Cologne. With the emergence of rap in NRW there also came an outlet for anger, grief, and resistance against the continuities of racist and antisemitic violence being witnessed throughout Germany. Microphone Mafia, founded in 1989, became a rap group for remembrance. Marking these attacks, and every point of German history and politics through their lyrics, they also record the memories of their parents, cities, and communities. ‘Denkmal’, featured in this collage, was first released by Microphone Mafia in 2002 and was written by group member Kutlu Yurtseven’s own father, a leader in the 1973 strikes.
In Ozan Ata Canani’s recording with Berivan Kaya of ‘Vom Bosphorus bis zum Rhein’, first released in 2022, he asks to be heard in both German and Turkish. Understand us, he says, even when we are burnt to ashes – we are here, and we belong here. We are a part of you, Germany. With the most recent arson attacks in Solingen in March 2024 that killed a young family of four and in June 2024 that injured many, these words become even more critical for our time.
This work, therefore, acts as a monument to the many injured and lost to racism and antisemitism in NRW but also to the many who stood before and to the many who stand now in resistance, resilience, and solidarity. Their vocal demands for recognition, justice, and change are clear and strong. Listen to me, they say. It is time to be heard.

For more information, visit: https://stopp-zuhoeren-begegnen.de/sound/

HÖRT MIR ZU: DIESES LIED IST EIN DENKMAL (LISTEN TO ME: THIS SONG IS A MONUMENT)

Artist: Talya Feldman
Sound Design: Carlos Ángel Luppi
Featuring: Mischa Ushakov, Elyana Feldman, 
Rebecca Schwartz, Rachel Spicker
Research Support: Rabbi Rebecca Blady, 
Sapir von Abel

A sonic history of the Reichenbachstraße Synagogue in Munich, from its first inauguration in 1931 to its most recent revival in 2025. A collage of news reports, re-imagined speeches, interviews, memorials, choral music, and prayers. 

A tribute to Jewish grief, joy, devotion, and life.

(01:14) Dr. Neumeyer
Performed by Mischa Ushakov, 2026
The inauguration of the new Eastern Jewish synagogue on September 5, 1931
Bavarian Israelite Community Newspaper
September 15, 1931

“May this house be a place of genuine devotion and true fear of God. May the house serve as an example of charitable sentiment and the most faithful willingness to make sacrifices. May the peace of the heart and the world hover over this house for all time!”

(04:51) Ma Tovu
Composer Louis Lewandowski (1821–1894)
Performed by Basel Synagogue Choir Zurich Synagogue Choir
Strasbourg Synagogue Choir
Soloist Ron Epstein
Conductor Rémi Studer
Organ Hector Sabo
Chazanut Concert, Riehen/Basel (Switzerland) 
November 20, 2016

(07:29) Yitgadal
MOTL 2023 Mourner’s Kaddish Shai Abramson and 
Auschwitz survivor Arie Pinsker
International March of the Living
April 18, 2023

(08:29) Dveykut (Cleaving)
Performed by: Elyana Feldman, Rebecca Schwartz, Talya Feldman, 2026

(09:44) Inauguration of the Synagogue
Produced by Universal News
Munich, May 22, 1947 [English, German]
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. (Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive)

“In Munich, the rebuilt synagogue of the Jewish community was ceremoniously inaugurated. The presence of General Clay and many other officials underscored the significance of the day. The ceremony centered on a speech by the general, who expressed his hope that a new era of goodwill and mutual understanding would begin. General Clay also conveyed the congratulations of the entire American people and his army. During the religious ceremonies, a plaque was unveiled in memory of the 6 million victims who died for their faith. As a result of Nazi terror measures, 582,000 of the former 600,000 German Jews, or 97 percent, lost their lives."

(11:11) VaYehi Binsoa Ha’aron
The Sasonkin Brothers Choir
© 1993-2026 Chabad-Lubavitch Media Center

(12:26) Max Meir Blum, Rivka Regina Becher, Leopold Arie Leib Gimpel, David Jakubowicz, Siegfried Offenbacher, Georg Eljakim Pfau, Rosa Drucker
Recited by Rachel Spicker, 2026

(12:42) Anti-Semitic arson attack in Munich 50 years ago
Tobias Krone
Deutschlandfunk Kultur
February 11, 2020

“Fifty years ago, an arson attack was carried out on a residential home belonging to the Jewish Community in Munich. Seven Holocaust survivors died. The case remains unsolved to this day. The victims are now being commemorated in an unusual way.”

(13:33) Yitgadal
Mourner’s Kaddish @ Union Square Vigil For #TreeOfLifeSynagogue Massacre
Sandi Bachom
October 27, 2018

(14:41) Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words
Arranged and edited by Constatin Von Sternberg
G. Schirmer
Publication: 1915
Use: Public Domain Mark 1.0
Internet Archive
January 27, 2023

(15:39) The Reichenbachstraße Synagogue
Interview with Rachel Salamander
Documentaries & Reports on Bavarian Broadcasting
December 21, 2025

"We cannot credibly lament the losses caused by National Socialism and at the same time leave a pre-war synagogue that survived the furor of Kristallnacht and the bombing campaign to decay. It is a scandal of history that those who caused the disaster have remained collectively silent…it is in the interest of the citizens of Munich, it is in the interest of Germany, it is of national interest far beyond Germany that such an architectural gem be restored.

...to give it back to the world and give a voice to the people who built it back then. These are the things that move me. Every time I come in here."

Talya Feldman

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