Pianist Jascha Nemtsov was on the fast track to success as a concert artist when he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1986 with distinction and a gold medal. Little did he suspect that an accidental meeting would turn him into a musical detective. Some fruits of his research are the focus of “The Last Romantics: Jewish Composers of Interwar Europe,” his Kennedy Center concert under the auspices of Pro Musica Hebraica.

“After moving from Russia to Germany, I met by chance an Israeli conductor living there who talked about Russian-Jewish composers I’d never heard of,” he said. “From the few names he gave me, I began researching. At first I was only interested in pianists and music composed for them. My interest in history soon led me to research at the state library in Berlin where there is a good collection of music printed by two Jewish publishers in Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century.