Realizing a Utopia...
The Cherkasy T. Shevchenko Music and Drama Theater has the other day hosted a charitable concert of the local chamber orchestra conducted by A. Diachenko, with the Ambassador of Belgium to Ukraine, Monsieur Pierre-Clement Dubuisson, participating. It is planned to utilize the funds raised for purchasing a multimedia center to teach foreign languages at the Cherkasy First City Gymnasium and some medical equipment for the Smila city hospital.
Belgian charity in Cherkasy oblast has a long history. It was launched by Madame Marie-France Barbier-Matisse who came to Ukraine in 1995 and hit upon the idea of helping local hospitals. A year later, Mme Marie-France came back, bringing genuine aid. Since then, hospital No. 14 in the city of Smila has received surgical and other medical equipment worth several million dollars. An unprecedented fact in the region! Besides offering medical aid, the Partnership: Ukraine — the Two Luxembourgs association has also started a cultural project, viz., assisting local school and college students... The project’s motto is “Hope and Realize a Utopia.”
Now about the concert. The audience was almost packed. Tickets sold at 5 hryvnias. The repertory included two classical giants: J. S. Bach and A. Vivaldi (“for the mind and the heart,” respectively). They began with Vivaldi, and the part of the bassoon was soloed by M. Pierre-Clement Dubuisson himself who had been practicing music since he was seven, had received a university and conservatory education, and had been giving private bassoon lessons (at a mature age). Further compositions were performed with participation of the ambassador’s Belgian friends, professional musicians M. Thierry Camael and the charming Catie Adam whose heartfelt play carried a light touch of irony and a sense of complete inner unrestraint... Even the unwarranted applause in the pauses of cyclic oeuvres could not spoil the exalted atmosphere. After the musicians were through, the stage was taken by regional and civic fathers who said that the authorities and the populace lived in close cooperation and that the concert again proved this... It should be noted that bureaucrats in no way helped the soiree. The hall rental had always cost 1200 hryvnias which the organizers deducted from the profit. By contrast, an estimated 500 tickets were bought, plus the concurrent expenses. This brings back the words of Mme Barbier-Matisse who had a good mind, well before the concert began, to call it “concert of friendship” rather than “charitable concert...”
Mr. Ambassador confessed later that he was at first very excited but then felt the air of a feast. Asked by The Day, Monsieur Dubuisson said he intended to continue similar performances, without making it a non-stop tour, though. The recital was followed by an informal chat of the participants and the organizers. What left an indelible impression was the answer of Simon Hluzman, executive secretary of the Association of Ukrainian Psychiatrists, to the question of whether he liked the performance. Mr. Hluzman said he had “special impressions” and recalled the following story: 1975, the Urals, Perm oblast, prison camp 389/35, winter, a traditional 30-degree frost, barbed wire, dogs, snow all around, and the watchtower with a humble loudspeaker which had remained silent for a long time. Then the latter suddenly begins to crackle and the ordinary Soviet radio announces that listeners would now have a chance to hear Vivaldi. The sounds of music run across the white wilderness. Fate decreed that the psychiatrist would hear this oeuvre for the second time 27 years later...
