For more than 100 million people around the world, fleeing violence and persecution is the only way to find security and make a new beginning for themselves. Together with the Barenboim-Said Akademie, the UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe, German partner organization of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, hosts this special concert as a tribute to its work through more than four decades. Last year marked the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Convention on Refugees. Especially in these times, it is important to pay tribute to the courage and resilience of forcibly displaced people worldwide, and to call for solidarity with them—as a milestone toward a whole-of- society approach that brings together emergency humanitarian aid, long-term development goals, and international collaboration.

Daniel Barenboim, who was originally scheduled to perform Beethoven piano sonatas in this concert, has had to cancel his appearances as a pianist until the summer on the advice of his doctors. Instead, musicians from the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and the Barenboim-Said Akademie will be heard in works by Anton Webern, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, led by Michael Barenboim.

Proceeds from the concert will benefit the UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe.