On Saturday, July 28, Principal Conductor of Live at Orchestra Hall Sarah Hicks and host Sam Bergman lead an Inside the Classics program titled Speaking Truth to Power, highlighting orchestral music that holds a light to some of humanity's darkest eras and celebrates those who have struggled to overcome prejudice, hatred and violence. The wide-ranging program explores music that commemorates the women’s suffrage movement, pays tribute to the sacrifice of African-American Civil War soldiers, laments the lives lost in the bombing of Hiroshima and mourns the loss of a generation of gay men during the first fifteen years of the AIDS epidemic. Of the works on this unique program, Bergman says, “This is music born not of a desire for applause, but of a bone-deep need for amplification, recognition and hope.”

The concert’s feature work is The Prisoner by Canadian-American composer Karim Al-Zand, who will be in attendance for this performance. In The Prisoner, bass-baritone soloist Kevin Deas sings text from the writings of Adnan Latif, blended with poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi and others. Latif was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay by the U.S. government after September 11, 2001, never charged with a crime, ordered released multiple times and died in U.S. custody in 2012.

This concert also includes performances of Apologue: Of Rage and Remembrance from John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Penderecki and William Grant Still’s In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy, in addition to selections by Benjamin Britten, Joan Tower, Dame Ethyl Smith, Ludwig van Beethoven and Dmitri Shostakovich.

The Minnesota Orchestra’s Inside the Classics concert is held at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis on Saturday, July 28, at 8p.m., with tickets priced from $30 to $50. More information is available at minnesotaorchestra.org and by phone at 612-371-5656.

*Please note: This program includes adult-oriented topics, including references to violence and oppression, and may not be appropriate for young children.