French composer Maurice Ravel lived through both the first World War and the Spanish Flu. Beethoven took shelter in his brother’s cellar during the Napoleonic wars. Ruth Crawford Seeger, once a budding classical composer, found her way to folk music during the Great Depression. Associate Conductor Rebecca Bryant Novak explains how these moments of world crisis not only influenced each composer’s music at the time, but would go on to shape who they became.

Composers In Crisis examines how exulted musicians over time have dealt with periods of tribulation, and what we might learn in our own harrowing moment from those past experiences.

“No one wants to be living through what’s happening in our current moment,” says Bryant Novak. “But this whole thing could end up having some really creative responses that lead to new modes of music being produced.”