Moved by the plight of children all over the world, but especially by the plight of children caged and separated from their families at the border, Adolphus Hailstork composed WOUNDED CHILDREN, a suite of 13 interconnected, untitled short movements that may be heard as one 30-minute fabric, yet the individual movements also stand on their own.

In the composer’s own words: Children starving in Africa. Children bombed and gassed in Syria, and abducted in Nigeria. The direct impetus for writing this piece is the caging of immigrant children in the southwest part of the United States of America. My country. My Homeland. These children were separated from their parents without any tracking system for reuniting parents with their children. The children will bear the scars of their internment for the rest of their lives.