Apollo Chamber Players - Ban: Stories of Censorship (2025)

Tracklist

01. The Book of Names (Version for Narration & String Quartet)
02. Ban
03. String Quartet No. 6 Firewall: I. Prelude
04. String Quartet No. 6 Firewall: II. Through the Rye Catcher in the Rye
05. String Quartet No. 6 Firewall: III. Unstuck in Time Slaughterhouse-Five
06. String Quartet No. 6 Firewall: IV. Night and Day on the River Huckleberry Finn
07. String Quartet No. 6 Firewall: V. Daisy & Jay The Great Gatsby
08. Revise?
09. Arman Hope
10. Quantopia
11. Sis çanı
12. The Book of Names (Version for String Quartet)

Stories of Censorship is Apollo Chamber Players' bold musical response to rising global threats against freedom of expression. Featuring new commissions by composers from politically embattled regions-including Afghanistan, Turkey, and the U.S.-the album amplifies voices often silenced. Narrated by cultural icon George Takei, The Book of Names recalls the Japanese-American internment through music and memory. DJ Spooky's Quantopia / The Thought Police confronts disinformation and the erosion of truth in the digital age. In Revise? composer Jasmine Barnes and Houston Poet Laureate Emeritus Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton explore the distortion of Black identity in American culture. Arman (Hope) by Afghan composer Homayoun Sakhi is a lyrical reflection on artistic survival under Taliban rule, with the idea of hope at the forefront, while Turkish composer Erberk Eryilmaz's Fog Bell becomes a powerful metaphor for the role of artists as warning beacons-standing like a fog bell boldy cutting through the mist against authoritarianism and censorship. Together, these works form a musical call to conscience, reminding us that in dark times, art is both resistance and refuge.

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