Much of what happens around us or to us happens rather by chance. You may initiate actions, but what follows depends upon many factors. Sometimes situations arise on their own, such as an accident or a chance meeting. Or in the case of Maestro Murry Sidlin when he happened upon a book entitled Music in Terezín: 1941–1945.
And so began his journey to find out how Jewish prisoners at a World War II concentration camp staged 16 performances of Verdi's Requiem. The performances came to symbolize resistance and defiance and demonstrated the prisoners’ courage to confront the worst of mankind with the best of mankind. The remarkable story of how and why a group of overworked and underfed inmates sang the towering “Requiem” is told in the powerful concert-drama, “Defiant Requiem."
Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín was conceived and created by Maestro Murry Sidlin. It combines the magnificent music of Verdi with video testimony from survivors of the original Terezín chorus and footage from the 1944 propaganda film about Theresienstadt.
"I'm merely a messenger of the people who were there. I'm telling their story. That's all it is. I'm in the service of their souls, their spirits." ~~Maestro Murry Sidlin.