How did exiled musicians from Germany and Austria, who reached safety at Kitchener Camp in Britain, find themselves in an Australian internment camp in New South Wales in 1940? What were the institutions that helped Jewish refugee musicians survive in wartime Shanghai? What happened to Austrian musicians who were trapped in the Netherlands after the German occupation?

These and other questions, and the larger stories they refer to, form the compelling content of this book. Other topics include the struggle of the Vienna operetta composers Granichstaedten and Katscher in USA, the relationship of emigre composer Berthold Goldschmidt to his native Hamburg and the reception of his 'exile opera' Beatrice Cenci. Studies of Mischa Spoliansky's music for the movie Mr. Emmanuel(1944) and Franz Reizenstein's radio opera Anna Kraus form part of the fourteen essays on exile musical history in Britain, Europe, USA, Australia and the Far East, based on cutting edge archival research and interviews by leading scholars.