The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra invites you to an evening brimming with lyricism and drama, live from Katowice. Feodor Akimenko's Nocturne in D Major begins the program, followed by Shostakovich’s passionate Symphony No. 14, a response by the composer to the Songs and Dances of Death by his compatriot Mussorgsky. The texts—drawn from poems by Federico García Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, Wilhelm Küchelbecker, and Rainer Maria Rilke—evoke death as well as the beauty of life, and are sung by a soprano and a bass. Ukrainian maestro Kirill Karabits leads the orchestra in this 1969 masterpiece, with Natalya Romaniw and Joshua Bloom stepping ably into the roles of the soloists!