Musicology scholar Naomi Graber and piano and voice duo Vance Reese and Amanda Horton will present Meet Mack the Knife at 7 p.m. Oct. 14 in UNC Asheville's Reuter Center.

Graber will explore the Jewish influences on the compositions of Kurt Weill, a leading composer for musical theater in Berlin during the Weimar era, best known for his classic, The Threepenny Opera. Reese and Horton will give an illustrative performance to accompany Graber’s lecture. This event is free and open to the public.

Graber’s lecture is the second in the yearlong Evenings at the Cabaret Weimar series, exploring Germany’s tumultuous experiment with democracy during the Weimar era. The period was marked by modernist innovations in the arts, theater, architecture, literature and science, and by a vibrant cabaret culture.

Graber is a visiting assistant professor of musicology at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia, and is a noted authority on Weill’s career. Reese is an organist, accompanist, singer, conductor and teacher, and currently works with the Asheville Choral Society, the Asheville Symphony Chorus, the Asheville Symphony Orchestra and Asheville Lyric Opera. Horton has appeared as soprano soloist with the Asheville Symphony, Asheville Choral Society and the Carolina Concert Choir.

Evenings at the Cabaret Weimar will continue on Oct. 28 with a presentation by Israeli filmmaker Duki Dror,Is There A Jewish Architecture? This series is sponsored by UNCA’s Center for Jewish Studies and OLLI (the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute).

For more information, contact the Center for Jewish Studies atunca.edu/cjs or 828.232.5027, or OLLI at olliasheville.com or 828.251.6140.