Dies Irae for choir and orchestra (2005), part of Requiem for Beslan.

The Beslan school hostage crisis (also referred to as the Beslan school siege or Beslan massacre)of early September 2004 was a three-day hostage-taking of over 1,100 people which ended in the deaths of over 380. It began when a group of armed mostly Ingush and Chechen Islamic militants took more than 1,100 people (including 777 children) hostage on 1 September, at School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia, an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation.