Program IV: Remembrance

Set to texts by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Shostakovitch’s epic masterpiece offers a blistering denunciation of anti-Semitism and other social ills. Babi Yar is the ravine outside Kiev where the Nazis murdered tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews, yet where Soviet officials refused to erect a monument after the war. This piece will be directed under the baton of Christian Reif joined by bass soloist Denis Sedov as well as a chorus of men from alumni of the Chamber Chorus of the University of California, alumni of the Pacific Boychoir Academy, and members of the St. John of San Francisco Russian Orthodox Chorale under Chorusmaster Marika Kuzma.