The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra’s fourth summer tour will see it visit old friends and new. Debut concerts in countries that have shown such staunch support for Ukraine and its people in their moment of need, in the Baltic states of Lithuania and Latvia and at the George Enescu Festival in Romania, will be staged alongside return visits to Lucerne, Amsterdam, Warsaw, and London. With a program featuring Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as a symbol of resilience and hope, the tour brings together supporters from many nations at a decisive time in Ukraine’s continuing defense of its sovereignty and cultural identity.
The audiences will hear a suite by Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets from the opera “The Mothers of Kherson”. The opera, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and the Polish National Opera, is based on true events: Ukrainian mothers who traveled over 3,000 miles across borders to rescue their deported children. This music reflects not only the fearlessness and love of a mother but also the profound strength of the human spirit. Kolomiiets, being an oboist and a master of orchestral color, creates striking and unexpected soundscapes, blending the brightest traditions of European classical music with Ukrainian folklore and contemporary aesthetics.
Composer Maxim Kolomiiets about his piece:
I wrote the Suite from “The Mothers of Kherson” at the kind request of Keri-Lynn Wilson and the Metropolitan Opera.
The piece appeared before the opera itself was completed. So the suite is to some extent a living reflection on the tragic events of the story. The plot of the opera tells us about the fate of three women from Kherson who rescue their children who were kidnapped by the Russians during the occupation of the city. This story is documentary reliable. It is full of drama, despair and hope. But no matter how tragic the events in the opera are, this story is about something more than just the fates of specific people. It is about faith, about struggle. It is about all the best that is inside us. And most importantly, it is about boundless love that moves us forward and does not allow us to obey circumstances.
It was these bright feelings that I tried to recreate in the opera and transfer them to the suite, linking them into a single musical plot.
The suite consists of three movements. The first is the introduction to the opera (according to the plot, the action starts from the very beginning). The second movement is an almost literally repeated fragment of one of the opera’s scenes. And the third is made up of different scenes and themes. First of all, the lullaby – the main theme of the opera – which is heard several times in the course of the plot.
With faith in people, with love for our loved ones and with hope for the future.
Check our events for the performances of this work by the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in August/September
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention