Below, between the walls of a room in the municipal school of Borodyanka in Ukraine, a food distribution is being organized. A few musical notes escape from the floor. Alina, 14 years old, begins his piano lesson. “I missed not playing the piano anymore, says the girl. I was very worried about my instrument which was at my grandmother’s. I was afraid it would be destroyed. When we got home, the first thing I did was sit down at the piano and play my favorite music. I felt a sense of calm and happiness.”
“For me, music has become more precious, it has more importance than before.”
Alina, 14 years oldat franceinfo
Along with Boutcha, Irpin and Tchernihiv, Borodyanka is one of the martyr towns of this region occupied for nearly a month by Russian army troops. The small music school reopened in this building, which is still used today as a logistical base by the authorities.
The course of the day focuses on the piece of a contemporary Ukrainian composer, Irina Volnourina. With the war, the repertoire studied changed. “Of course, the contribution of Russian composers to music in general is important, but for the moment, we will leave them aside, begins Tetyana Tichenko, music teacher. It’s related to our pain and the current situation. I lost my house. My children are far away. Many of my relatives are dead. I know that we cannot continue to live in hatred but for the moment it is like that, I suffer.”
“I will no longer teach the works of Russian composers to children, but rather give preference to Ukrainian music.”
Tetyana Tichenko, music teacherat franceinfo
Two weeks before the start of the school year, thea music room is a joyful shambles, strewn with barely unpacked boxes, and brand new instruments, which have not yet been sorted. “There are currently six electronic pianos, listening systems, we also have fourteen new violins, sixteen new guitars… We launched an appeal on social networks to address people who were sensitive to our cause. We were looking for sponsors to help us. And it worked, gasped, grateful, the headmistress of the school, Oksana Shevchenko. It is a miracle in the horror of war. Music may save the world.”
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Before the war, seventeen teachers taught music to nearly 150 students. To today, a little more than half of them returned to Borodyanka.
In Borodyanka, Ukraine, music after the bombs: report by Thibault Lefèvre and Eric Audra
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