“Whenever a country is in turmoil, inevitably, people try to find groups to blame for the problems at hand,” conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya began her explanation of why she left her native Russia 22 years ago. “I remember as a small child going to my chorus rehearsals, and every week as I went passing through the Catherine Garden, which is the main square in St. Petersburg, I would pass Nazi demonstrations, with swastikas flying and people handing out pamphlets that said ‘Kill all the Jews. They’re killing our economy.’ ”
Exile Aria
On the Refugee Orchestra Project
