An orchestra as a voice of resistance, urgent and contemporary.
What does the symphony orchestra sound like today as a voice of resistance and protest? To mark the opening of the Shifting Sounds festival, we explored this question with Brussels Philharmonic and Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov, who concluded his 2025 BBC Proms performance with a powerful statement against genocidal violence in Gaza. Drawing on this urgency, Volkov has curated a compelling programme. In Inscription, Raven Chacon explores the fragility of the collective, opening up new, charged spaces with silence and fragmentation. With For Wadada Leo Smith, Tyshawn Sorey presents a meditative homage to African-American history and artistic resistance. In Saouah! Annea Lockwood blends voices and gongs into a ritual soundscape of connection and attentiveness. In Weathering, George Lewis responds to a perpetual state of alertness shaped by ongoing experiences of anti-Blackness. His music captures the sound of that struggle and seeks out new histories and identities within classical music: ‘Weathering (the music) is about the sound of that struggle … I am hoping that this music will provoke not stress, but empathy.’