Peace Imagined

Peace Imagined

Oct 27, 2024 - 5:00 pm

PEACE IMAGINED

Visions of peace have helped sustain people in the darkest of times and inspired bold ideas and actions to create a better world.

Two works by Afghan-born composer Milad Yousufi reflect his dream of making a difference to the rich culture of his troubled homeland. His Imaginary Peace is a message of hope amid a world of conflict. His I cried portrays the longing for home of a refugee wandering to an unknown destination. Imaginative works by Erwin Schulhoff and Sándor Kuti, two composers murdered in the Holocaust, challenge us to imagine what they and so many others might have created in longer lives and in a normal world. A musical setting of Primo Levi’s haunting literary witness to the Holocaust searingly depicts the struggle to preserve a human identity in the face of overwhelming forces bent on destroying it.
Guest artist: soprano Vanessa Isiguen
Special guest: composer Milad Yousufi

Full Concert Program:

Groung (2014)
Mary Kouyoumdjian (b. Pleasant Hill, CA 1983)

Sonata for Flute and Piano (1927)
Erwin Schulhoff (b. Prague, 1894 - d. Wülzburg concentration camp, 1942)

String Quartet no. 2 (1934)
Sándor Kuti (b. Budapest, 1908 – d. German concentration camp, 1945) 
US Premiere

Shema (1994)
Simon Sargon (b. Mumbai, India, 1938 – d. Chevy Chase, MD, 2022)
A setting of five texts by poet Primo Levi

Conversation with Composer Milad Yousufi  (b. Afghanistan, 1995)

I cried (2021)
Milad Yousufi 

Imaginary Peace (2018)
Milad Yousufi 

Music of Remembrance Ensemble:
Demarre McGill, flute; Laura DeLuca, clarinet; Mikhail Shmidt, violin; Natasha Bazhanov, violin
Artur Girsky, viola; Eric Han, celloJonathan Green, double bass; Jessica Choe, piano
Soloist: Vanessa Isiguen, soprano