The KSO recalls the seige of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg — Russia’s second largest city), where and when Dmitri Shostakovich’s war time Symphony No. 7 was premiered. The image of a patron buying a ticket to the premiere, as Axis troops surrounded and bombarded the city for 900 days, is a testament to the arts’ impact and the will of people to persevere and survive. Sergei Prokoviev’s War and Peace Overture fittingly opens the program.