Musica Liberat is dedicated to, among other political prisoners in Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, living symbols of the world’s failed hopes for rule of law and freedom of expression in Russia. They have now spent almost 8 years in jail and the gross mishandling of their case has inspired imitation by corrupt officials across Russia, spreading impunity and deepening corruption throughout the country. The decision in May 2011 of the Moscow City Court to uphold their December 2010 convictions has made both of them prisoners of conscience according to Amnesty International.
cnn.com - Gidon Kremer special to CNN
The event aims at drawing attention to the human rights situation and lack of rule of law in Russia. From Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who denounced official misdeeds and died having being denied medical care in jail, to journalist Anna Politkovskaya and many others who were killed or still risk their lives every day by trying to express themselves freely, Russia’s legal nihilism is inflicting a terrible and growing toll.
The idea of the concert emerged in 2009, when one of the most important and uncompromising artists of our time, Arvo Pärt, prefaced his latest symphony “Los Angeles”, dedicated to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, with this epigraph: “With my composition, I would like to reach out my hand, extending it to the prisoner, and in his person to all those imprisoned without rights in Russia”. Previously, in 2009, Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica orchestra united a group of musicians in Leipzig for a concert dedicated to political prisoners in Russia.
Info from http://musicaliberat.eu/
