For her 90th birthday, Aspen resident Juliane Heyman commissioned a song I've titled "Rucksack" for soprano and piano performed by mezzo soprano Geeta Novotny and myself on piano. The text is taken from Julie's fascinating autobiography "From Rucksack to Backpack" interweaving her escape from the Nazis during WWII with an incident with the police in the Poconos mountains where she and her girlfriend went for a hike. At that time—early 1940s—hiking was not a known hobby in the U.S. The police thought she was a prostitute!