This tour of the Ukrainian National Symphony Orchestra is as much cultural as diplomatic. It begins Tuesday in Great Britain to thank the British for the help provided to fight the Russian invasion.
The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine begins its first tour of the United Kingdom in 22 years on Tuesday October 17. “As a challenge to the Russian invasion”written this week the Guardian. The British daily devotes a long article to the Ukrainian National Symphony Orchestra, which was shattered at the start of the War in Ukraine. Its musicians then dispersed, some volunteering to help on the ground, others going for shelter. But it didn’t take long for the orchestra to start performing again, performing concerts in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Taiwan and from Tuesday in 17 venues in the United Kingdom.
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Everyone has gradually found their place, and their instrument, and when the first musical notes fly away during the orchestra’s concerts, the war could seem very far away, if it were not for the air alarms which interrupt the rehearsals. in the Lysenko Column hall in Kiev, forcing the musicians to take refuge in the air raid shelter which can accommodate 200 people. There is also the conductor’s stool covered in army camouflage fabric, and a few seats left empty, that of the violist who left to play his instrument in the army, that of the tubist who became a machine gunner. The war remains very present with its absences of musicians.
The British tour which is starting will be as much cultural as diplomatic. If the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine chose Great Britain for its tour it is for all the help it brings to the country, and because as the conductor says: “all the music we play, whether it’s Schuman or Beethoven, now speaks about our war.” As if the music sounded different. He tells the Guardian how last year the mayor of a European city said to the musicians: “If you fight as fiercely as you play, Ukraine will definitely win the war”.
The renewed interest in Ukrainian music
In the meantime, almost everywhere in Europe, far from the din of war which has not stopped because bombs fall elsewhere, Ukrainian music has perhaps never aroused so much interest. Like a sad irony of history. The National Orchestra of Ukraine is being offered throughout Europe the opportunity to promote Ukrainian composers who have long vegetated in the shadow of their Russian peers, such as Boris Lyatoshynsky whose second symphony was banned by the authorities. Soviet at the time of its creation. It is on the program of the British tour, just like Finlandia by Jean Sibelius, a reference to the struggle of another nation, Finland, also long occupied by its eastern neighbor, to regain its independence.