When the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine performs in Taiwan next month, it plans to have one message for the audience: “We are still alive, and we will win,” the orchestra’s chief conductor Volodymyr Sirenko said on Wednesday during an online interview with reporters based in Taiwan.
After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February last year, the orchestra continued playing around Ukraine, and every time there was an air raid alert, its members and the audience would hide in an air raid shelter where the musicians continued performing to calm people’s nerves, Sirenko said.
“It is important that we bring music to the people, especially during wartime,” Sirenko said.
All of the orchestra’s members still live among the wreckage in Kyiv, where they hold their practice sessions, which are often interrupted by air raid alerts, he said.
The orchestra just wrapped up a month-long tour of Europe, where it was “warmly” received and elicited enthusiastic responses, Sirenko added.
The orchestra is to perform in Taichung, Kaohsiung and Taipei, and all three concerts would feature Ukrainian pianist Antonii Baryshevskyi, said KHAM Inc, the shows’ promoter.
For the concerts at the National Taichung Theater on Sept. 11 and the National Concert Hall in Taipei on Sept. 13, the orchestra would perform Symphony No. 2 in G Major by Ukrainian composer Maxim Berezovsky, Piano Concerto No. 4 by Ludwig van Beethoven and Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39 by Jean Sibelius, it said.
On Sept. 12, the orchestra would perform a different set list at National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, including Piano Concerto No. 1 by Frederic Chopin, Grazhyna Symphonic Ballade by Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky and Mazeppa Symphonic Poem by Franz Liszt, it said.
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