Classical music can be a difficult environment for musicians of color to thrive. As Slocumb explains in his author’s note, fewer than 2% of musicians in U.S. orchestras are Black.

Joshua Barone is the assistant performing arts editor on the Culture desk and a contributing classical music critic at The Times. THE VIOLIN CONSPIRACY By Brendan Slocumb 342 pp. Anchor. $28.

SLOCUMB: My music teacher, Miss Holmes (ph) when I was in third grade - she said, you can always tell it's Mozart by this little song. (Singing) It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a Mozart.

A violin made in 1941 inside the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau was found to contain a hidden note from its maker, Polish Jewish prisoner Franciszek Kempa.