Project seeks to save music written by Holocaust victims

Songs written by Shoah victims premiere in Atlanta as a part of program run by Italian conductor to preserve musical compositions.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Latoro_Holocaust_311 (photo credit: Associated Press)
Latoro_Holocaust_311
(photo credit: Associated Press)
ATLANTA - An ongoing project seeks to preserve and perform music written by victims of the Holocaust and other World War II prisoners.
A handful of the songs made their world premiere on Tuesday in Atlanta during "Testaments of the Heart," a program to help raise money to collect and preserve more music produced by captives of the Axis powers.
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Some songs are slow, emotional, almost weepy symphonies. Others are driving and angry pub songs. A few are sarcastic jazz numbers.
Already thousands of the songs have been collected by Italian pianist and conductor Francesco Lotoro in a 20-year effort to ensure the music is preserved.
He plans to house the collection in Atlanta's Emory University once he raises the money to transfer it to the university's library.