In Auschwitz, some musician inmates were saved from imminent death or slave labour and forced to form orchestras. In conversation with the Deputy Head of Archives at Auschwitz-Birkenau this year, Constella OperaBallet learned that some of the music composed for the orchestras remains in the Auschwitz archives. These scores have barely been touched, or performed, since the camp was evacuated in 1945. As the number of Holocaust survivors diminishes, stories and memories are increasingly lost.

Constella OperaBallet seeks to give life to these hidden musical compositions by incorporating them into a new work commissioned in memory of the historian Sir Martin Gilbert, thus transmitting the history of the Holocaust to the next generation. This piece will form the genesis of a new opera-ballet with music reconstructed and re-imagined by Leo Geyer (Artistic Director of Constella OperaBallet and conductor with The Royal Ballet) and with libretto written by Ella Marchment and Anna Whyatt.