American & Russian musicians come together to honor their heroes who joined forces to crush Hitler's Nazis in World War II

Relations between the US and Russia may be at a low point right now, but a virtual concert organized by the American Center in Moscow hearkens back to a different time, when US and Soviet troops defeated Nazi Germany together.

The show aired on Wednesday, and featured an ensemble of celebrated Russian and American musicians. Among them were Russian pianist Polina Osetinskaya and American soprano Janinah Burnett. The singers of the Bolshoi Theater Young Artists Opera Program also lent their talents to the production, while the program was directed and conducted by Moscow-based classical cellist Alexander Rudin.

“Tonight’s concert, while celebratory, is also solemn in nature,” the US Ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, said before the performance. “We recognize the shared sacrifice, enduring commitment, and unflinching bravery of the Allied forces that defeated the Axis powers.”

The music performed included American patriotic fanfares, written to lift the spirits of the fighting men, and the more somber strains of Mieczysław Weinberg, a Polish composer who fled to the Soviet Union as his family were rounded up for extermination by the Nazis.

Allied forces defeated the Axis powers 75 years ago this year. Attacking Germany from both West and East, American and Soviet troops met each other on April 25 1945 at the Elbe River near Torgau. Adolf Hitler would commit suicide five days later, and the war would be over in Europe on May 8. Fighting in the Pacific theater continued until August, ending with the unconditional surrender of Japan following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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