On the Composer’s Studio this week, Tarik and Amy take a deep dive into composer Jesse Ayers’ opera Beneath Suspicion, based on historical accounts of the friendship between two abolitionist women in Virginia during the civil war–one an emancipated slave, the other a white former slave owner. Their powerful story encourages us to have faith in the face of adversity, choose right in the face of opposition, and to lean into one’s destiny even when that destiny involves great risk. Closing with Jericho, an epic tour de force of percussion and brass, we are left triumphant and optimistic about the future we are planning to build together.