“The tickets for our concerts are already sold out”

It is prestigious festival, which introduces gifted young musicians across Europe. On the eve of the trip to the festival, on August 8, the orchestra will give a concert at the Great Hall of the National Music Academy, featuring the program prepared for the international forum in Berlin.

“The Symphony Orchestra of Pyotr Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine will participate at YOUNG EURO CLASSIC for the second time,” said Volodymyr Rozhok, rector of the academy. “The first time was in 2005, when the student orchestra was triumphant. Under the direction of Roman Kofman, a renowned conductor, they played in Berlin the 24 Caprices by Niccolo Paganini in transcription for the orchestra by an outstanding modern Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk. This year the Academy received an invitation to the forum from the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, and they provided full funding for the trip.

“The project consists of two parts: on August 13 the Academy Orchestra will perform in the most famous concert hall of Berlin – the Konzerthaus; and on August 23 some of our musicians in cooperation with young musicians from other European countries will meet in Berlin to perform the Ninth symphony of Beethoven.

“The creative and organizational work in order to arrange the participation in the festival took almost a year. The bulk of the work was the development of the concert program. According to the organizers’ request, the youth orchestras have to perform one of the symphonic masterpieces of the past, and introduce a piece of music from their country, which have never been performed in Germany before. For our orchestra’s part, we have chosen the Symphony No. 2 (‘Ukrainian’) by Pyotr Tchaikovsky (whose name bears our Academy), the brilliant Concerto for violin and orchestra by our outstanding contemporary composer Yevhen Stankovych, and a symphonic piece by one of the Academy’s graduate students Andrii Merkhel.

“Before the concert, the brass department of the orchestra will perform the National Anthem of Germany, the score for which had been sent from Berlin in advance. We also prepare one piece for encore performance: it would be The Melody by Myroslav Skoryk which has become a musical symbol for Ukraine. The festival will also feature a competition among young composers, whose music will be performed in Berlin. We hope that the work by our talented graduate will also be noted. The solo parts of the Stankovych’s Concerto will be performed by our graduate Dmytro Tkachenko (see photo) – a talented violinist, winner of many international competitions, who now works in the UK, as well as in our Academy, and tours many countries with his concerts.

“I also want to say a couple of words about the orchestra. I am listening to their rehearsals almost on a daily basis, and I’m impressed by our talented youth, who manage to infuse the music with professionalism and fresh emotions, the kind of which one can find only in youth! They handle the most complex scores by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Stankovych, and Skoryk... Of course, much credit for this goes to the artistic director and conductor of the orchestra, Ihor Palkin, professor of our Academy, who throughout his career has experience of conducting in Belgium, Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, France, Switzerland, and many other countries. His distinct and yet expressive conducting manner mobilizes the performers for the most complicated tasks, and the emotional charge the young musicians receive from the Maestro makes them work with the fullest dedication possible.

“The Student Symphony Orchestra was established back in 1920s, and since then its graduates have been joining the best musical ensembles of our country. The first achievements of the orchestra are associated with the famous conductor Oleksandr Orlov. Throughout the years many leading Ukraine’s conductors stood at the helm of the Student Orchestra – Veniamin Tolba, Nathan Rakhlin, Stefan Turchak, Roman Kofman. The orchestra has also collaborated with musicians from other countries – Mstislav Rostropovich, Aram Khachaturian, Giuseppe Gillio, Cornelius Eberhardt, and others. Since 1970s the performances of the Student Orchestra has been incorporated into the program of our capital’s leading concert hall – the National Philharmonic’s Hall of Columns. From 2007, the Student Symphony Orchestra is directed by maestro Ihor Palkin.

“The participation in the festival required painstaking organizational work. Just imagine the acquisition of documents required for obtaining 85 entry visas for all the orchestra members, of passports for the musical instruments, which are necessary to take them over the international border, not to mention all the other travel arrangements, like train and bus tickets! I’d like to thank our employees – Natalia Davydova and Oksana Sapiha, who overcame seemingly insurmountable difficulties and managed this task successfully. But the most important is, of course, the artistic outcome and the publicity about Ukraine’s creative young people. Our students have long been communicating with their young colleagues and competitors at the Festival through Facebook and email.

“The attention to Ukraine’s participation in the YOUNG EURO CLASSIC festival is extremely high. There are daily information updates at the online forum; German media shows a lot of interest through TV and radio reports, as well as through interviews with the composer, the conductor, and the soloist; and finally, it can be told by how the tickets for the orchestra performances have been sold out in advance. The young musicians are anxious, as all of us are – we have to represent Ukraine’s culture in the European musical community.”