For all that music is and can be — from the pens of its composers and into the lives of its performers and listeners — for all of its artistic expression, music is very often a powerful symbol of resistance and defiance.

Friday night at Strathmore, Music director Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra present their Off the Cuff series finale by examining Shostakovich’s resistance to Nazi aggression through his powerful Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad,” written in 1941 as the German forces began their 900-day siege on his beloved city.