{"id":263124,"date":"2026-06-11T13:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T13:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/263124\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T13:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T13:24:09","slug":"world-refugee-day-concert-to-premiere-songs-of-resilience-support-immigrants-detained-at-delaney-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/263124\/","title":{"rendered":"World Refugee Day Concert to Premiere ‘Songs of Resilience’ & Support Immigrants Detained at Delaney Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

MAPLEWOOD, N.J. \u2014\u00a0On World Refugee Day, June 20, composer\u00a0Sheila Silver<\/a>\u2018s new song cycle,\u00a0Songs of Resilience, will receive its world premiere during a benefit concert raising funds to support immigrants detained at Delaney Hall, the federal immigration detention center in Newark. The concert, featuring internationally recognized singers and instrumentalists, will take place at 7 p.m. at St. George\u2019s Episcopal Church in Maplewood.\u00a0The concert\u00a0is co-produced\u00a0by Silver, Maplewood resident\u00a0Melissa Citro<\/a>, and\u202fPROTESTRA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To buy tickets, visit\u00a0https:\/\/events.humanitix.com\/songs-of-resilience<\/a>.\u00a0All proceeds will go to organizations providing critical\u00a0assistance\u00a0to our immigrant neighbors:\u00a0First Friends of New Jersey & New York<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Cosecha<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Silver\u2019s\u00a0song cycle, Songs of Resilience,\u202fwill feature soprano\u202fMelissa Citro,\u00a0soprano\u202fTeresa Castillo<\/a>,\u00a0and pianist\u202fFrancesco Barfoed<\/a>. Silver\u2019s powerful new song cycle gives voice to individuals confronting urgent social, political, and humanitarian crises \u2014 a journalist witnessing starvation in South Sudan; a parent discovering banned books in Florida; a Palestinian-American poet who documents displacement, lineage and homemaking away from home; a Turkish Ph.D. student arrested and jailed for writing an Op-Ed in her school newspaper; a mother and daughter experiencing the loss of a free society; a rallying cry,\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t comply in advance!\u201d; and a prayer yearning for a kinder, more loving world,\u00a0\u201cMay we be saved by what we save.\u201d\u00a0The songs embody a plea for sanity, empathy,\u00a0healing\u00a0and renewal and speak to courage,\u00a0conscience\u00a0and the\u00a0weight\u00a0of moral reckoning. Each is penned by a different author:\u00a0Nicholas Kristof, Sara Abou Rashed, Ann Ellsworth, Victor Feldman, Stephen Kitsakos, Rob Lewis,\u00a0and\u00a0Lucile Lichtblau.<\/p>\n

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In addition, flutist\u202fJuan Carlos Narv\u00e1ez<\/a>\u202fand pianist\u00a0Francesco Barfoed<\/a>\u00a0will perform\u202fBorderless Dreams, a new work by composer\u202fArturo Rodriguez<\/a>. This\u00a0passionate\u00a0work explores the interior narrative\u00a0many\u00a0immigrants experience when contemplating emigration, spanning from hope to trepidation, and from home toward the unknown.<\/p>\n

St. George\u2019s Episcopal Church is\u00a0located\u00a0at 550 Ridgewood Road, Maplewood, NJ, just a two-block walk from Maplewood\u2019s NJ Transit station. Parking is available in the church lot and on nearby side streets. The concert will run approximately 80 minutes, with a reception to follow.<\/p>\n

If you are unable to attend or want to provide\u00a0additional\u00a0support, please donate to these organizations through this crowdfunding link:\u00a0https:\/\/donorbox.org\/songs-of-resilience.<\/a>\u00a0To\u00a0learn more about the songs, the authors, and to read the texts, visit\u00a0https:\/\/www.sheilasilver.com\/songs-of-resilience\/<\/a><\/p>\n

ABOUT SHEILA SILVER:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sheila Silver\u00a0is a distinguished composer of chamber and orchestral music, songs,\u00a0opera\u00a0and film scores. Her opera,\u00a0A Thousand Splendid Suns, based on the international bestselling novel by Khaled Hosseini, was premiered by Seattle Opera in February 2023 and shortlisted for \u201cBest World Premiere\u201d by International Opera Awards, 2023. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Sackler Prize in Opera;\u00a0numerous\u00a0Opera America and National Endowment for the Arts awards; Bunting Institute Fellowship; Rome Prize; Prix de Paris, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Composer Award and\u00a0numerous\u00a0grants and commissions. Her music is performed internationally. She is also professor emeritus at Stony Brook University and lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Melissa Citro<\/p>\n

ABOUT MELISSA CITRO:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Soprano\u00a0Melissa Citro\u00a0specializes in bringing the great soprano\u00a0heroines\u00a0of Puccini, Wagner, Jan\u00e1\u010dek, and Dvo\u0159\u00e1k to life, including Tosca, Turandot, Minnie, Sieglinde, Senta, Elisabeth, Jen\u016ffa, Emilia Marty, and Rusalka. Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and Winner of the George London Award, Citro has performed with the San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Stuttgart Opera, Detroit Opera, Opera Colorado, New Orleans Opera, Opera Southwest, Virginia Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Dallas Opera, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Bard\u00a0Summerscape, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Richmond Symphony Orchestra. Citro studied at The Juilliard School and Westminster Choir College, with\u00a0additional\u00a0training at Music Academy of the West and San Francisco Opera\u2019s Merola Program. A native of Quincy, Illinois, Citro is a longtime resident of Maplewood, New Jersey.<\/p>\n

ABOUT PROTESTRA:\u00a0<\/p>\n

PROTESTRA<\/a>\u00a0(protest + orchestra) bridges the divide between advocacy and classical music through grassroots orchestral benefit concerts. Our new vision for classical music prioritizes diversity, equity, inclusion, representation, and accessibility. First assembled in 2017 and formally incorporated in 2020, PROTESTRA\u00a0is a volunteer-run orchestra and 501(c)(3) organization. PROTESTRA\u2019s grassroots orchestral benefit concerts inspire activism by contextualizing classical music performance through multimedia education and turn voluntary audience donations into targeted support for\u00a0mission- and policy-driven groups related to the concert\u2019s themes. PROTESTRA prioritizes diversity, equity, inclusion, representation, and accessibility in both its hiring and programming practices. Additionally, PROTESTRA maintains a robust social media presence, creating and sharing original content and resources with 10,000+ followers across multiple platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MAPLEWOOD, N.J. \u2014\u00a0On World Refugee Day, June 20, composer\u00a0Sheila Silver\u2018s new song cycle,\u00a0Songs of Resilience, will receive its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[102003,102004,102005,9,24,63,102006,102007,102008,102009,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-263124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-cosecha","tag-first-friends-of-new-jersey-and-new-york","tag-melissa-citro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-protestra","tag-sheila-silver","tag-songs-of-resilience","tag-st-georges-episcopal-church-maplewood-nj","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}