Violin virtuoso Gidon Kremer launches concert against Vladimir Putin and lashes out at the likes of Anna Netrebko and Valery Gergiev.

Violinist Gidon Kremer is enlisting the talents of artists like Daniel Barenboim and Martha Argerich for a concert in support of Russian oppositionists who have been jailed or suppressed by Vladimir Putin’s administration.

The concert will take place in Berlin, and is scheduled for October 7, the anniversary of the death of Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot and killed in 2006 after publically criticizing the presidency of Putin.

Titled ‘To Russia With Love’, the concert will feature Russian works and one new composition, Angels of Sorrow, written by Georgian-born composer Giya Kancheli in tribute to the imprisoned Russian philanthropist Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

“It’s obvious to the world that the charges against Khodorkovsky are ridiculous,” Kremer said in a recent interview with Russian Snob magazine. “Once the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky sought only to use his wealth as a tool to improve society. But Russia’s regime simply labeled such efforts as unjustified and a crime; as a result he has spent the last eight years in prison. As artists, it’s our duty to raise our voices in a...