Peace Imagined
Oct 27, 2024 - 5:00 pm
Peace Imagined
String Quartet no. 2 (1934)
Sándor Kuti (b. Budapest, 1908 – d. 1945, German concentration camp)
US Premiere
Sonata for Flute and Piano (1927)
Erwin Schulhoff (b. Prague, 1894 - d. Wülzburg concentration camp)
Shema (1994)
Simon Sargon (b. Mumbai, India, 1938 – d. Chevy Chase, MD)
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
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 Afghani-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 with the hope of finding peace, love and generosity along the journey.
Erwin Schulhoff was a daring innovator whose eclectic embrace of modern styles and influences made him a compelling musical presence in the years between the world wars.
Sándor Kuti’s youthful promise led Georg Solti to write of him, years later: “I am convinced that had he lived, he would have become one of Hungary's greatest composers.” Schulhoff and Kuti met their ends in Nazi camps. Their music challenges us to imagine what they, and so many others, might have created in longer lives and in a normal world.
Simon Sargon’s Shema is a musical setting of Primo Levi’s haunting literary witness to the Holocaust, with its searing depiction of the struggle to preserve a human identity in the face of overwhelming forces bent on destroying it.
