Intercontinental music

The Music of All Continents premier concert took place in the National Opera of Ukraine on the celebratory occasion. The author and art director of the project was the conductor Herman Makarenko together with the symphony orchestra Kyiv-Classic.

The creative project Music of All Continents was organized with the help of foreign embassies accredited in Ukraine. It was aimed at acquainting our listeners with the works of composers from different countries and with previously unknown works of famous authors, and also to familiarize fo-reign melomaniacs with Ukrainian music. In 2006 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs awarded Makarenko with the honorary status of Ambassador of Ukrainian Culture, for active promotion of Ukrainian culture and art abroad.

The geography of his orchestra’s tours is impressive; he is welcome in Europe’s most prestigious concert halls, where he presents both world classics and Ukrainian music, from Mykola Lysenko to modern composers such as Myroslav Skoryk, Yevhen Stankovych, Vitalii Hubarenko, and Ihor Shcherbakov.

It was the second time that the UN supported Music of All Continents in the past five years. Olivier Adam, the UN resident coordinator, and Kostiantyn Hryshchenko, Ukraine’s foreign minister, held the welcoming address. The music part of the soiree started with the “Anthem of the United Nations” by Kazals, and the overture to the opera Taras Bulba by Lysenko, in which one could feel the entire power, passion and extreme lyricism of Ukrainian classical music. The program itself was pleasantly varied.

Many works by composers from different countries were performed. Among them were My Motherland – Australia by Peter Allen, the Arabic songs Feve, The Garland of Songs of China, My Love by I. K. Dairo, and the symphonic version of Verano Porteno (Buenos-Aires Summer) by Astor Piazzolla. There were also new works and variations performed in turns with the popular melodies of Leonard Bernstein and Astor Piazzolla, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Johann Strauss. Full of inspiration, Makarenko brilliantly conducted the musical fireworks.