Click Here Coded music
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Feb 6, 2026 Karen Duffin, producer/reporter who narrates the Cold War Phantom Orchestra mission, and Meryl Goldberg, conservatory-trained saxophonist who encoded messages into music. They recount a covert 1985 trip to Moscow, training in evasion, turning sheet music into code, clandestine concerts under surveillance, and the risky smuggling of stories out of the USSR.
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Imagination As A Form Of Resistance
- Small acts of imagination can subvert large, repressive systems when formal power is absent. Musicians used their craft and cultural cover to expose refusenik stories in ways the state didn't anticipate.
Secret Mission To Meet Dissident Musicians
- Meryl Goldberg and fellow conservatory musicians flew to Moscow in 1985 on a covert mission to find the Phantom Orchestra. They posed as cultural exchange performers while secretly tracking refusenik musicians and collecting their stories.
Use Your Skills To Protect Others
- Use your existing skills and networks to help people overlooked by systems of power. Leverage what you already do well to amplify others' stories and create protective publicity.