Nowhere Land - Austria Premiere

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the poetess who fled to the USA in 1938 from the Nazi regime, Etta Scollo presents a tribute of text and music. Together with actress Corinna Harfouch and other artists, she introduces her intimate yet universal album centered around Mascha Kaléko's poetry.

The connection between language and music is as old as human history. In rituals, religious ceremonies, or storytelling, language and music merge into a unity that goes far beyond the mere conveyance of information—a tradition that spans from antiquity to modernity. In language and music, people and their life paths meet, discovering connections where there was once strangeness. The new album "Nirgendland" (Nessunluogo) by Etta Scollo fits into this tradition; it will be released in January 2025 by Jazzhaus Records and features Etta Scollo translating the poems of poetess Mascha Kaléko into music in honor of her 50th death anniversary. The story of the encounter between Etta Scollo and Mascha Kaléko's work began in 2007 in Catania, Sicily. In a small bookstore, the singer discovers a bilingual poetry collection by Mascha Kaléko, whose lyrics captivate the musician. The idea of musically interpreting Kaléko's poems took several years to mature until Etta Scollo found the right context to dedicate a tribute to the poetess.

The central focus of the album is the question of home and identity—themes that shape Mascha Kaléko's life and work and are also deeply rooted in Etta Scollo's artistic engagement. Kaléko, who had to flee to the USA in 1938 from the Nazi regime, experienced the painful reality of exile and the associated uprooting.

For Etta, who has oscillated between different cultures and places since her youth and now lives between Sicily and Berlin, Kaléko's verses resonate with her own life choices and her search for belonging—even if in a different, modern, and European-democratic context. "I chose love as my homeland," it says in one of Kaléko's most significant poems for Etta Scollo, "The Early Years," which Scollo set to music as the first piece for "Nirgendland" (Nessunluogo). This sentence became the anchor of the entire project.