The time is 1939. The time could be now. Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child of Our Time wasn’t simply inspired by social injustice, persecution and conflict, it was written in the midst of these things, and it continues to speak to us across the decades.

A succession of events triggered the creation of this modern classic – composed during World War II – but the most important was the protest-shooting of a German diplomat in Paris by a 17-year-old Jewish boy, Herschel Grynszpan, which became a pretext for the terrible events of Kristallnacht. From this emerged the concept of a passion-oratorio in the tradition of Bach and Handel, but with African-American spirituals taking the place of reflective chorales. The powerful result transforms the story of one individual into a timeless expression of human experience.