Crisis in Ukraine

Clare Stevens looks at how the musical community has been affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its aftermath

Left: Kharkiv Music Festival Photos: O.Osipv / Kharkiv Festival ‘What is more opposite to music?’ asked the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in a speech recorded in a bunker in Kyiv and broadcast as part of the Grammy Awards in Las Vegas on 3 April. ‘The silence of ruined cities and killed people,’ was his answer to the question. ‘On our land, we are fighting Russia, which brings horrible silence with its bombs. The dead silence.’

Zelensky described how in Ukraine, ‘our musicians wear body armour instead of tuxedos. They sing to the wounded in hospitals; even to those who can’t hear them. But the music will break through anyway.’

While millions of refugees stream out of war-torn Ukraine, those who have stayed behind to defend their country against the Russian invaders include countless musicians. Song-writer and guitarist Sasha Boole told Rolling Stone magazine how he had expected to be starting a UK tour on 1 April with the folk and blues band Me and That Man, but instead found himself putting the military training he undertook as a student into practice, swapping rehearsal schedules for the discipline of army life. Ivan Kozakevich, lead singer of Ukrainian heavy metal band Sectorial, told a similar story of joining up on the day of the first Russian attack, and being sent to help defend Kyiv, meeting several fellow musicians in his military unit.

Kozakevich found room in his army kit for a few instruments, and described the relaxing or cheering effect of playing his favourite music in off-duty moments; by contrast Boole said he had tried in vain to write new songs and at first did not miss music, he missed peace. Me and That Man’s concert dates have been rescheduled until later in the summer and he was looking forward to getting back to performing after the war and, he hoped, to a surge of interest in Ukrainian music.

Watching the ever more shocking pictures of genocide and destruction emerging from Ukraine, it is difficult for the rest of us to comprehend what its citizens are enduring. Many musical organisations around the world have been showing solidarity with the Ukrainian cause by performing the country’s national anthem, a setting by Mykhailo Verbytsky of Pavlo Chubynsky’s patriotic poem ‘Shche ne vmerla Ukraina, ni slava, ni volya’ / ‘The glory and freedom of Ukraine has not yet perished’. In early March, for example, the European Concert Hall Organisation put together a film featuring the orchestras of cities throughout Europe performing the anthem, from Birmingham, Liverpool and Gateshead in the UK, to Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Stockholm, Hamburg, Lyon, Barcelona and Katowice; and the orchestra and chorus of New York’s Metropolitan Opera performed it on the opening night of Verdi’s Don Carlos.

Keen to enable performances by student and amateur musicians, ISM member Sharon Jane Sullivan has made simple arrangements for several instruments including violin, cello and viola with chord symbols for optional piano/guitar accompaniment, which are available through Sheet Music Direct with profits going to relief work.

The patriotic hymn ‘A Prayer for Ukraine’ has also been a popular choice for performance by musicians wishing to support the Ukrainian community. It was composed and published in 1885, during a time when Ukrainian language was suppressed by the government of Imperial Russia. The text was written by poet and interpreter Oleksandr Konysky and the music by composer, pianist and conductor Mykola Lysenko, who is regarded as the founder of the Ukrainian national school of composition.

ISM member Nicholas Daniel performed an instrumental version of Lysenko’s prayer with the Britten Oboe Quartet in two concerts at Hellens Manor in Herefordshire on the first weekend in March; fellow ISM member Pamela White, chairman of Hereford Choral Society, heard the performance and arranged for an a cappella version to be sung at the start of her choir’s spring concert in Hereford Cathedral the following Saturday. Singers and orchestra alike wore ribbons in the now familiar yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, and a bucket collection at the end of the concert raised nearly £1,900 for the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal.

Above (from left): English National Opera shows support for Ukraine at its London Coliseum home

Cellist Lukas Stasevskij plays Bach and Penderecki in the ruins of a Kyiv suburb

One of the 200 musicians who played music by Ukrainian composers in a Trafalgar Square flashmob performance in March Photo: Matthew Johnson

A few weeks later a Come and Sing performance of the Fauré Requiem at St John the Evangelist Church, Iffley Road, Oxford, livestreamed by the Positive Note film company, raised more than £9,000 via Just Giving for three charities working in Ukraine. Conductor David Crown, organiser of the concert, spoke for many when he said: ‘This war has challenged me on so many levels and I felt I wanted to do what I can do, which is make music, as my offer of help and support to those poor people caught up in this senseless war,’ and quoted the composer Leonard Bernstein’s moving words: ‘This will be our reply to violence – to make music more intensely, more devotedly, and more beautifully than ever before.’

Still to come is a community concert for Ukraine in St Helen’s Church, Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, organised by ISM member Claire Partington, featuring intermediate to advanced piano and violin students playing solos, duets and ensemble pieces in a range of styles.

On a very different scale was the Concert for Ukraine held at the Resorts World Arena, Birmingham, with a huge live audience, and broadcast on ITV, STV and by Livewire Pictures, sponsored by Marks and Spencer. Snow Patrol, Camila Cabello, Ed Sheeran, Gregory Porter and Emeli Sandé were among the acts taking part in the event, which combined performances with short films about the plight of the people of Ukraine and the efforts to help them. Sandé said she sang ‘to try to help every innocent human being forced to flee their home and in solidarity with those being racially discriminated against even within this humanitarian crisis’.

The Ukrainian Cultural Association in the UK (UCA-UK) was founded in the autumn of 2020 to raise awareness of Ukrainian culture, traditions and history, support charitable and humanitarian efforts, showcase the work of Ukrainian artists and advocate for women’s equality and cultural collaboration. Prior to the current emergency its programme had included concerts in memory of the victims of the Chernobyl disaster, a celebration in words and music of the poet Taras Shevchenko, and, ironically, a ‘Celebration of Freedom’ in October 2021 commemorating 30 years of Ukraine’s independence, featuring professional musicians and artists with Ukrainian, Greek, British, Asian and Polish backgrounds. On 4 March this year the UCA-UK’s planned concert showcasing women in music, presented with the Federation of Women’s Associations at St Philip’s Church, Kensington, and sponsored by the ISM, unexpectedly turned into a fundraising event that was featured on Channel 4 News and raised more than £3,000.

The concert included a recital by violinist Kamila Bydlowska and UCA-UK’s founder and president, ISM member Alla Sirenko. Sirenko studied piano in Kyiv, composition in Lviv and organ in Tallin and now works as a composer and pianist based in London. As the crisis in her home country has unfolded over the past few weeks, Sirenko has been doing as much as she can individually and with UCA-UK to help ease the pain of her fellow Ukrainians. She hopes to arrange more fundraising concerts in the future and has been helping to coordinate efforts to offer accommodation in the UK to refugees from the conflict, particularly musicians.

‘It is such a tragic and challenging time for my beautiful, beloved Ukraine and its people,’ she says. ‘Families are fleeing their homes, children are living through the sounds of gunfire and bombing, and the people of the Ukrainian diaspora do not know whether they will see their families ever again.

‘However, in this time of crisis, a beautiful unity has unfolded across the globe. The international community has come together to support Ukraine; instilling sanctions, supporting through humanitarian aid, and rallying together around the community to offer emotional support and solidarity.’

More information and contact details for Ukrainian emergency appeals can be found in Sirenko’s blog post on the ISM website ism.org/blog/musicin-a-time-of-crisis and at the Ukrainian Cultural Association in the UK’s website usauk.com

A more controversial issue arising from the war has been how to represent Russian music on the concert stage and on air, and how to negotiate working with Russian performers. In the first few days after the Russian invasion classical music news websites were full of posts about cancelled concerts, repertoire changes, the dismissal of conductors from artistic directorships and the voluntary resignations of others who no longer wanted to be employed by organisations associated with Putin’s regime. Audience members threatened not to attend performances if the advertised Russian musicians were taking part; the Dublin Piano Competition drew widespread criticism when its administrators told nine Russian pianists they would not be eligible to compete; and the amateur Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) was vilified on social media for removing military-themed works by Tchaikovsky from its spring concert.

Following a roundtable discussion that included representatives of the ISM, on 3 March the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) issued a statement outlining a set of principles to support its members in their responses to the situation. In addition to condemning the invasion and expressing support for the people of Ukraine, the statement commended the decision of many of its members to suspend or discontinue the engagement of Russian artists with a known and declared link to the Putin regime. While supporting Russian artists who publicly condemn the actions of their country’s government, the ABO said that no musicians should be compelled to do so if there was a risk that it would endanger their lives or the lives of their families.

With regard to repertoire, the ABO states that ‘works by Russian composers are intrinsic to the canon of Western classical music. We do not support a blanket boycott of these works, just as we do not boycott works created by composers in other countries at other times that were also subject to international condemnation … Our members will, however, take steps to place Russian compositions in their historical context, if relevant, and communicate this to their audience.’

The full statement from the ABO is here abo.org.uk/news/2022/ invasion-in-ukraine-abo-statement

An all-Russian programme by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the same week, broadcast on BBC Radio 3, was preceded by a speech to the audience by its chief executive, Stephen Maddock, expressing a similar philosophy. After condemning Putin’s aggressive invasion, he said: ‘We feel it is important to emphasize that none of these terrible events is the fault of the Russian people, nor of the many Russian artists who have bravely criticized the actions of their government.

‘Equally, none of it is the fault of Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky, whose music we are about to play. Indeed as we listen to the Romeo and Juliet overture, we might very well hear a plea for peace, a statement of defiance against the destructive urges of ancient, pointless grudges … The international language of music can, perhaps, speak more powerfully to us than any mere words.’

Amidst the horrendous images of slaughtered civilians, burned out tanks and devastated buildings that were emerging from the war zones as this issue of MJ was in preparation, there are others that illustrate those words about the power of music very vividly. Among the saddest are the photographs tweeted by Dalia Stasevska, the Finnish principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, of her cellist brother Lukas Stasevkij playing Bach and Penderecki amid the ruins of bombed buildings in Kyiv, an eloquent commentary on the destruction.

More optimistic, however, are the pictures of musicians who had been booked to perform at the Kharkiv Music Festival playing to spellbound audiences in bunkers and underground stations. Performances in the city’s Philharmonic Hall were replaced by ‘Concerts between Explosions’, such as the programme of works by Myroslav Skoryk, Schubert, Bach and Dvorak plus new arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs by Vladimir Bogatyryov, performed by a string quintet on the steps of the Historical Museum Metro Station. A small gesture, perhaps, but an eloquent message of hope amid the gloom.

From left: ISM member Alla Sirenko’s fundraising recital was featured on Channel 4 News

Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams at a fundraising concert for Ukraine at London’s Southbank Centre Kseniia Nikolaieva at a fundraising concert for Ukraine at London’s Southbank Centre Photos: Pete Woodhead