Mission Statement

The mission of Bearing Witness is to share a multi-media solo cello program that reflects global racial injustice. It is an enlightening concert, weaving together history lessons from a worldwide perspective with an artistic focus.

Between pieces, video narration provides real-life stories from marginalized cultures. The storytellers are teenagers, representing the next generation; our future. The juxtaposition of children with these important issues is powerful.
Discussions of systemic racial division and cultural bias are, and should be, at the forefront of our national consciousness.

Bearing Witness offers the opportunity to consider how stories from history about loss and trauma can move us and awaken empathy, while expanding our knowledge and world views. These are true stories about real people. Highlighting these narratives from underrepresented cultures with unique and meaningful music for solo cello is compelling.

Program

Thirty-Eight Tears - Timothy C. Takach

Khse Buon - Chinary Ung

Sonata No. 1 for Solo Cello - Mieczyslaw Weinberg

Three Pieces for Solo Cello - John Williams

Finding Refuge Together - Jocelyn Hagen, Video essay by Kao Kalia Yang

Having Wept - Giya Kancheli

Interview with Minnesota Public Radio

http://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2019/06/03/bearing-witness-kirsten-whitson

These resources were utilized in the creation of the program

Books

These Truths: A History of the United States - Jill Lepore 

The Relentless Business of Treaties: How Indigenous Land Became U.S. Property -Martin Case

38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End - Scott Berg

In the Footsteps of Little Crow - Curt Brown

Follow the Blackbirds - Gwen Nell Westerman

Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota - Gwen Nell Westerman and Bruce White

Rosewood: The Full Story - Gary Moore

Like Judgement Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood - Michael D’Orso

Mieczyslaw Weinberg: In Search of Freedom - David Fanning

Web Resources

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/479/little-war-on-the-prairie

http://endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/the-cambodian-genocide/

https://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/cases/cambodia/background/origins-of-the-khmer-rouge

http://time.com/5486460/pol-pot-cambodia-1979/