The Black Oak Ensemble performs music by French composers and works from their newest CD Silenced Voices. Ensemble members are violinist Desirée Ruhstrat and cellist David Cunliffe, members of the GRAMMY-nominated Lincoln Trio, and violist Aurélien Fort Pederzoli, a founding member of the ground-breaking, GRAMMY-nominated Spektral Quartet. Silenced Voices features “lost” music from Hungary composed prior to and during WWII. Until members of the ensemble unearthed it during a visit to Budapest, it sat unperformed for decades. The ensemble’s hope is for this project to speak for those who were so brutally silenced during the pogroms, the exiles, and the Shoah. Ordinary people suffered, artists suffered, and their voices needed to be heard. Kevin Lahvic is a contemporary American artist based in Chicago’s historic Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee Avenue, for almost two decades. Known for his warm, rich pallet, uplifting themes, and humorous takes on the human condition, his work is most often described as … Happy.