April premieres

The Musical Season Premieres have roused the Ukrainian capital, throwing passionate music buffs and even ordinary music lovers into a whirlwind of emotions. From the first days it became apparent that contemporary academic music is alive and well in Ukraine and that there are dedicated composers, inspired performers, and grateful audiences in our country. This means it has a future.

THE BEGINNING

The gala concert launching the series of concerts at the National Philharmonic Society of Ukraine featured Hanna Havrylets’s sunlit Parallels? a musical present for the composer’s birthday, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra and directed by Volodymyr Syrenko. Dmytro Tkachenko did an excellent job of performing Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, conveying the British composer’s ascetic yet impassioned harmonies. Many listeners in the audience must have been thrilled by the symphonic palette of Sviatoslav Lunev’s Panta Rei. The soiree was highlighted by the performance by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, a world-famous composer and pianist from Azerbaijan, who brought her fairy tale Initiation, a work that was commissioned by Mstislav Rostropovich in 2004 for the opening of the Baku Philharmonic.

Franghiz Ali-Zadeh is the first Azerbaijan performer of music by Webern, Berg, Schoenberg, Messiaen, and John Milton Cage, Jr., whose works were part of a series called “Piano Music of the XX Century.” She has consistently worked on her own compositions that are performed at prestigious festivals in Europe and the US. In 2003 Ali-Zadeh was awarded a diploma and medal by the International Biographical Centre of Cambridge, England. Her name is included in the List of Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century. She flew in to Kyiv from Paris, where UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura had just named her UNESCO Artist for Peace for her outstanding contribution to world art.

Ali-Zadeh is the chairperson of the Composers’ Union of Azerbaijan. After the concert she said that she is closely following contemporary Ukrainian composers’ achievements because, in her opinion, the Ukrainian school ranks with the world’s strongest.

“I remember being very impressed by Sylvestrov’s music when we heard it during meetings of the student academic society. We loved Ivan Karabyts. He was the life and soul of many musical events. We invited him to Azerbaijan and performed his music. In my third year at the Conservatory I wrote a dodecaphone sonata in memory of Alban Berg. Karabyts took a keen interest in my student work, and he took me to Sylvestrov’s home to introduce me to him. We often performed Kyiv. Much has changed over the years, and I was delighted to be invited to take part in this festival. Holding this grand forum is a great feat of patriotic valor, which is organized every year by its musical director Ihor Shcherbakov, who is also an excellent composer and a genuine music lover.”

HARMONY OF METAPHORS

There were no weak compositions performed during the concert of chamber music called “Between Words and Music.” In 2007 the Polish Institute in Kyiv invited several young Ukrainian composers to write music set to the works of Polish poets. These compositions, created by Bohdana Froliak, Oleksandr Shymko, Bohdan Sehin, and Mykhailo Shved, were performed by the Kyiv Camerata conducted by Roman Rewakowicz (Poland), featuring the Polish soprano Agata Zubel and the Ukrainian soprano Svitlana Hleba. This concert is proof of the colossal creative growth of these young Ukrainian composers. The Polish composer Jerzy Kornowicz, head of the Polish Composers’ Union, premiered his dynamic work Galaxy IV in Ukraine.

Fifteen choirs are taking part in the Musical Premieres Season, performing almost every day. This reporter was impressed by the excellent children’s choir Siaivo at St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral. This Nizhyn-based choir is conducted by Serhii Holub. The young singers warmed the listeners’ heart with the warm harmony of works by Bortniansky, Verykovsky, Leontovych, and Stetsenko amid the quiet brilliance of the church’s wall paintings.

Valentyn Sylvestrov’s new choral compositions were performed at the Church of St. Basil the Great. Several choirs took turns singing in front of the altar: the Pavana Female Choir of Drahomanov National Pedagogical University (conducted by Liudmyla Baida), the Revutsky State Men’s Choir (conducted by Yurii Kurach), the Kyiv National Culture and Art University Choir (conducted by Natalia Krechko), and the Kyiv Chamber Choir (artistic director and chief conductor: Mykola Hobdych). Every choir succeeded in conveying spiritual commonwealth — the innermost meaning of choral singing during their performances of psalms and prayers — as well as the mysterious fire that is concealed in the music of our great contemporary.

Another noteworthy festival event was the performance by Lesia Dychko’s Children’s Cantata of Barvinok, a work set to Stepan Zhupanin’s poetry for children’s choirs, a symphony orchestra, and percussion (the piano, organ, and percussion version). The composer wrote this work in 1978, but the premiere took place only this year.

The National Philharmonic Society was the venue of a rare spectacle combining choreography with video effects. There was a snowstorm accompanying a requiem for a fallen hero, and children dressed in colorful costumes sang carols. Nature was coming alive, and a forest brook was singing its song. The spring pastoral promised the fulfillment of dreams.

For the finale more than 200 performers came out on stage, so there wouldn’t have been any room for a symphony orchestra. Four children’s choirs performed a solemn ode to Ukraine in perfect harmony. The cantata Barvinok was a hymn to life, an expression of gratitude to those no longer among the living. It was radiant with the joy of understanding nature: a flower, brook, tree, snowstorm, and even the joy of understanding people.

All the participants of the festival are to be commended for their huge creative contribution: the Vesnivka Choir (artistic director and conductor: Zhanna Sosnovska), the Children’s Opera (artistic director and chief conductor: Natalia Nekhotiaeva), Yaroslavna (artistic director and conductor: Luiza Kovalenko), Dzvinochok (artistic director and conductor: Ruben Tolmachev); organist Halyna Bulybenko; set designer Volodymyr Lukashov, who built the entire set for the gala show; and choirmaster and producer Natalia Nekhotiaeva, whom Lesia Dychko describes as a “conductor by the grace of God.”

You can learn more about the program by visiting www.vg.co.ua.