Revisiting Childhood

On June 7 the violinist Myroslava Kotorovych will perform her latest concert “A Necklace of Childhood Dreams” in the Column Hall of the National Philharmonic.

“I have been following her creative progress for many years. Her artistry is undeniable, mesmerizing,” says the outstanding contemporary violinist Gidon Kremer, who certainly knows what he’s talking about. After all, since the inception of the student orchestra Kamerata Baltica, which Kremer founded in 1997, Myroslava Kotorovych has been its crowning asset, simultaneously adding an authentic Ukrainian touch to the orchestra’s performances. Myroslava began touring with the orchestra as a third- year student at Kyiv’s Mykola Lysenko Special High School for Music. During her years of study in a class taught by her father Bohodar Kotorovych, professor of the Ukrainian National Academy of Music, she won the Grand Prix at the “Golden Autumn” competition in Khmelnytsky, attended violin master classes taught by the distinguished teachers Marina Yashvili (Lancut, Poland), Ruggiero Ricci and Thomas Zehetmayer (Summer Academy in Salzburg), and received a scholarship from the Mozart Academy of Krakow. In 1993 she became a soloist with the Kyiv Kamerata National Ensemble of Soloists. Supervised by the conductor Virko Baley (USA), she, and others, recorded a CD of music by the famous Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych. Myroslava performed a few times with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, and she was the first concertmaster of the “Kyiv Soloists” State Ensemble.

Conceptually, her concert is a story about childhood, or more specifically, a childhood game — the happy period in the lives of now grownup musicians, who used to be enchanted by the miracle of music and dreamed of blinding stage lights and thunderous applause.

During the concert, an opportunity to return to childhood will be afforded by “The Toy Symphony” by Leopold Mozart, the father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and a distinguished pedagogue and violinist in his own right. In the symphony’s musical score the composer introduces noisy mechanical toy “solos,” while the symphony’s individual parts conceptually imitate the rehearsal of an orchestra of little musicians. The famous 17th-century violinist Heinrich Biber probably had a way of turning music studies into sheer pleasure for little brats. In his “Sonata Representativo” he wittily imitates animal sounds and even the heavy gait of a drunken musketeer. Myroslava Kotorovych will also perform “Gratulations Rondo” by the 20th- century classic Alfred Schnittke, which may be described as the interior of a baroque palace seen through the eyes of an observer in the age of urbanization. Contemporary rhythms, lyricism, and even the drive of symphonic ballads by 1970s rock groups will be conveyed in “Ballad” by the contemporary Italian composer Giovanni Sollim. The concert will also feature “Autumn Song” by the famous Moscow-based minimalist composer Volodymyr Martynov. Based on poems by Pleshcheev, this composition is written for a child’s voice, two violins, and string instruments. Similarly minimalist in manner is a scintillating miniature called “Warm Wind” by the Kyiv composer Viktoriya Poliova, which she wrote especially for the vibraharpist Andriy Pushkariov, who is visiting Kyiv again after his recent breathtaking tour with Gidon Kremer.

A major attraction of the concert will be a performance by violinist Vadym Borysov, concertmaster of the Kyiv Chamber Choir and the National Philharmonic orchestra, and the prizewinning violist, Oleksandr Lahosha.

The “Kyiv Soloists” String Orchestra will play throughout the concert, delighting the audience with its superb performance, and countless surprises and theatrical intermezzos. The performers, who are Ukraine’s youngest musicians, will not squander their chance to play at being children again.

Of course, the evening would not be complete without the musicians’ costumes, designed by Viktoriya Hres. In the meantime, the surprise planned by concert producer Vasyl Vovkun remains a secret.