Claude Arrieu’s handwritten score for “Le Sable du Sablier,” written about 1958 for voice and piano, using the text of poet Louise de Vilmorin. Arrieu, who worked against the Nazis during WWII through her music and musical connections, was commissioned to compose pieces for Auburn arts patron Alice Esty after the war. Muskie Archives, Bates College

LEWISTON — Decades after the demise of Adolf Hitler and the murderous Nazi regime he led, people still remember the heroes of the French Resistance, who blew up bridges, picked off military officers and helped the Allies target the occupying German army.

Related, but largely forgotten, is a different resistance at that same time, one that focused on something more esoteric and ephemeral: music.

This coming Friday, a free concert program in Lewiston will include selections titled “The Women Who Risked Everything for Freedom” that aims to highlight the courage of women musicians who put their lives on the line to challenge the German invaders.

“They put themselves at great peril as they were Jewish, and they sought to save French music, culture and lives,” said Grammy-nominated soprano singer Malinda Haslett, who leads the University of Southern Maine’s School of Music Voice Department.

The Bates College Choir, conducted by Jöelle Morris, during a 2023 concert. Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College

The focus on women composers in the Resistance is only one part of the March 1 “Celebrating French Music, the History Makers, the History Changers” concert at the Franco Center. The program will also highlight other largely forgotten French women composers and feature a performance of Gabriel Fauré’s “Requiem.”

“We want it to be a night of music and community,” said Anna Faherty, archivist at the Franco-American Collection.

The concert marks the first musical collaboration between the University of Southern Maine’s Osher School of Music and the Bates College Department of Music. Formally, the participants also include the Franco-American Collection at USM’s Lewiston campus and the Franco Center, with research help from Bates.

“This is something that’s been a long time in the making,” Faherty said.

Soprano Malinda Haslett, leader of the University of Southern Maine’s School of Music Voice Department. Submitted photo

Haslett singled out two of the World War II-era women composers – Elsa Barraine and Claude Arrieu – for their work in the resistance movement, which included the founding of the National Musicians Front, a group initially linked to the underground French Community Party, though it maintained a political neutrality to encourage membership.

She said the two women helped put together public concerts of composers denigrated by the Nazis, funneled money to artists in hiding and played key roles in “publishing an underground newspaper instructing anti-Vichy behavior.”

All the while, they kept working on their own music as well.

“Arrieu’s compositions were written clandestinely, sometimes by candlelight in her hiding place within the walls of Radio France. She wrote over 100 songs for classical voice, and yet none has ever been recorded,” said Haslett.

French composer Claude Arrieu.

In a secretly printed newspaper, Musicians Today, the group sought to foster resistance and call out collaborators.

One early issue laid out a set of rules that musicians should obey during the occupation.

Among them were holding concerts that would boost France, French culture and banned Jewish composers. Another urged solidarity among musicians and urged those working to give up half their pay to assist colleagues in prison or in hiding.

The paper also called for people to play the French national anthem whenever German troops were around and to compose new songs and marches for resistance fighters.

It said musicians who worked with the Germans were traitors. Barraine wrote one article about “German music in the service of Nazi regression” and another promoting “the traditions of humanism” in the French musical tradition.

After the war, the two women got short shrift for their contributions to war effort.

“Their efforts went unrecognized,” Haslett said, “and their music fell into obscurity.”

But they kept working, receiving recognition from, among others, a patron of the arts from Auburn.

Alice Esty, a 1925 Bates graduate who loved music, commissioned many pieces of music from 20th-century composers, including Arrieu, who died in 1990. One original score she wrote for Esty is now in the Bates College archives, along with a few handwritten letters.

Auburn arts patron Alice Esty, a 1925 Bates College graduate who commissioned work from underemployed composers and provided aid to others in the arts. Bates College photo

Bates awarded Esty an honorary doctorate in 1984 for her long service as an arts patron.

Organizers said the concert will honor Arrieu, Esty and “Maine’s contribution to the classical vocal music canon,” along with showcasing the work of current young vocal artists here in Maine.

Osher School of Music seniors Josephine Lawrence, Bella St. Cyr and Caroline Wood will present music of women pioneers Astrud Gilberto, Thea Musgrave and Francisca “Chiquinha” Gonzaga – women the young sopranos researched. Audience members will get to hear the results of their labor.

Both Haslett and singer Joëlle Morris, a native of Evian, France, will perform during the concert. Morris, a choral conductor and voice teacher, serves as the choir director at Bates.

Morris will share conductor duties during the concert with Scott Wheatley, who is on the voice faculty at USM.

Doors open at the Franco Center, 46 Cedar St., at 5:30 p.m., on Friday, March 1, with the concert slated to begin at 6 p.m. A reception will follow at 7:15 p.m.

Admission is free but seating is limited. To reserve a seat, phone (207) 689-2000 or online at francocenter.org/shows.