Greetings from the Czech Republic. I’m here with a chorus that will be performing Verdi’s Requiem at Terezin tomorrow. (For a history of Rafael Schaechter’s stubborn insistence on teaching and performing the Requiem in the ghetto, see Murry Sidlin’s webpage. The gist is that until he was finally murdered at Auchswitz, Schaecter taught several hundred other Jews the Requiem from a single score.)

Our hotel is located in the Smichov district, which is in southeast Prague. A few blocks away, there is an edifice that my bus’s guide pointed out as “the poetry building”:

From Europe 2009 – set 4

According to various online references, the architect was Jean Nouvel and the words are by Rilke.