Alternating, documents and wind quintets bearing witness to struggles for freedom and justice are arranged. Alongside words from Milan Kuna's book "Music at the Edge of Life", correspondence between the composers and accounts by contemporary witnesses are read aloud.
Darius Milhaud and Pavel Haas were victims of antisemitic persecution. While Milhaud was able to flee to the USA with the help of a conductor friend, Haas was taken captive and murdered in 1944 at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. During the war, the composer Grażyna Bacewicz showed resistance through secret anti-fascist actions under German occupation in Poland. Throughout her life she was committed to women's rights. The composer Elizabeth Maconchy, too, fought resolutely for women's rights and against fascism.
The finale features the piece "Umoja" by the African American composer Valerie Coleman. The title means "unity" and frames the concert with the message of the necessity of standing together against all this injustice and oppression.
ariaventus ensemble
Lisa Marie Klein, flute
Stella Heutling, oboe
Carl Steppes, clarinet
Caroline Renz, horn
Johann Heller, bassoon