Taiwan and Poland are to host a benefit concert for Ukraine on Sunday at the National Concert Hall in Taipei.
Tickets for the “Pray for Ukraine — Solidarity with Ukraine” concert are on sale now, the Polish Office in Taipei wrote on Facebook on Friday.
After deducting expenses, proceeds from the concert would fund relief work to help Ukrainian refugees, through donations made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Polish office said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The office said that it came up with the idea of the concert, which is organized by the Taipei Philharmonic Foundation for Culture and Education and directed by the foreign ministry and the Ministry of Culture.
The concert is to feature performances by Taiwan-based Polish pianist Kamil Tokarski, Taiwanese-American violinist Leta Chin (金昫祈), soprano Lin Ling-hui (林玲慧) and baritone Chen Han-wei (陳翰威), and is to be conducted by Wu Yao-yu (吳曜宇), associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra.
The concert is to include Prelude Op. 33 No. 1 by Sergei Bortkiewicz, a composer and pianist who was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1877 to a Polish noble family.
Bortkiewicz studied in St Petersburg, Russia, and Leipzig, Germany, and lived in Berlin, but during World War I he was forced to leave Germany and return to Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine. During the Russian Revolution, he fled to Istanbul, Turkey, as a refugee. He eventually returned to Berlin and then Vienna in 1922, where he spent the rest of his life.
The concert is also to feature A Prayer for Ukraine, a patriotic Ukrainian hymn by Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko that was published in 1885.
Lysenko, known as “the father of Ukrainian music,” was born in Hrynky in 1842. He was the founder of the national Ukrainian music movement, based on specific Ukrainian cultural traditions and the originality of its folk music.
The Polish office said that since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, more than 4 million Ukrainians have fled their country, while tens of thousands of people still need assistance and protection inside Ukraine.
“In this difficult time of life and death, we should stand up to help Ukrainians,” it said.
The concert also aims to bring people from all walks of life together to help Ukrainians through practical action, it added.
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