For four decades, Francesco Lotaro has been searching for and performing music written by prisoners and other victims of Nazi Germany's death camps, POW camps, Stalin’s Gulag and other authoritarian regimes, bringing both the music and its composers out from the darkness. He serves as president of the Foundation Institute of Concentration Camp Musical Literature, which is building a center to house its growing collection. He will perform a program of works on January 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, supported in part by the non-profit Counter Extremism Project.
A Tempo host speaks with Lotaro and Mark Wallace, a former diplomat and CEO of the Counter Extremism Project, about the performance, and what the music can represent and symbolize in today’s world of growing hate and extremism. They also discuss the decision to keep the performance at the Kennedy Center amid ongoing criticism of the center’s leadership.
