Ukrainian accordionist Roman Yusipey’s “Land of Hope” project features works by contemporary Ukrainian composers who were driven from their country by the Russian attack. Ukrainian music has opened up to the world since the turn of the century. Thus, international artistic encounters on a cultural level are more necessary than ever.

The Ukrainian part of the program not only enjoys the gradual development of the sounds meditatively – like in Zero by Victoria Poleva – but also brings a demanding technical challenge, a minimalistic perpetuum mobile, in Feuer in dein Augen by Maxim Kolomiiets. Oleksandr Shchetynsky’s melancholic For every city is inspired by traditional Ukrainian songs and a text by the philosopher Gregorius Skoworoda. The accordion is found in various roles, almost comparable to a travesty – as in the poetic work And The Sailors Enjoying The View Of The Earth by Bohdan Sehins, originally composed for organ.

Roman Yusipey has lived in Duisburg for several years and often works with German composers. Three compositions dedicated to him will be presented: the virtuoso-fundamental Rondo concertante by Helmut Zapf, a meditative lullaby, and Monshi by the Berliner Andreas Staffel, as well as Mriya pro myr…the dream of peace – written under the influence of the war in Ukraine, one work by a Düsseldorf composer Erik Janson.

Standstill by Daniel Weissberg from Basel works with subtle color changes that alternate with violent chord attacks. On the one hand, enduring and moving describes the basic model of Max E. Keller’s work, but as early as 1988 he pointed out that the two terms also have other meanings in addition to the more musical-technical one.

Accordionist Roman Yusipey, born in 1979 in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, studied in Kiev, in Hanover, in Essen (master’s degree) and in Cologne (concert exam). He is second prize winner at the 2001 Golden Accordion International Competition in New York. In 2003 he won first place in the international competition Premio di Montese in Italy. In addition to appearances in Ukraine and Germany, he gave concerts in France, Canada, Poland, Holland, Belgium, Lithuania, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Malta, Italy and Japan. In 2013 he was invited as a visiting professor at the Kazakh National Conservatory in Almaty. In 2015 Roman Yusipey recorded a CD “For every city – Ukrainian music of the 21st century for accordion”. As a soloist he gave over 80 concerts with orchestras conducted by Andrey Boreyko, Roman Kofman, Daniel Raiskin, Raymond Jannsen, Vladimir Sirenko. In addition, Roman Yusipey has performed in recent seasons at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Jenaer Philharmonie, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Mozarteum Salzburg, Salle Cortot Paris, as part of the Winnipeg Winter New Music Festival and Kronberg Festival.