The Kyiv Music Fest is an old-timer among Ukraine’s contemporary music festivals distinguished for its status and time-honored traditions. For the Kyiv public it has long become an event with an established image. Above all, this is due to its combination of avant-garde and classical pieces along with performances by celebrated maestros and up-and-coming young musicians. In what has become a tradition, concert programs combine pieces by foreign and Ukrainian composers along with compositions by Kyivans and representatives of regional schools.
The underlying theme of this year’s festival was an old theosophical reminder, memento mori, with most concert programs featuring works by composers who passed away in the past two-three years: the festival’s former director Ivan Karabyts, Oleksandr Bilash, Valentyn Bibyk, and Vitaly Hubarenko. Meanwhile, pieces by Valentyn Sylvestrov, who ranks among the greatest Ukrainian composers to have won international acclaim, were tacitly dedicated to his late wife Larysa Bondarenko’s birthday.
The festival leitmotif must have filled the air with some mystic vibrations that caused some of the planned concerts to be called off. With Bohdan Kotorovych on sick leave, pieces by Yury Laniuk and Viktoriya Polyova were not premiered. A very interesting concert by Yevhen Hromov also failed. It was to demonstrate a certain evolution in the avant- garde way of thinking in piano music: from Debussy to Ravel to Lourie to Schtockhausen.
Nonetheless, the festival served its edifying purpose. Among the successes, vocal cycles by Yuly Meitus and Sviatoslav Luniov, Arnold Shoeneberg’s Cabaret Songs, and songs by Alban Berg and Anton Webern merit special note. However, the festival suffered inevitable losses in this field also. Only four of Svyatoslav Luniov’s Six Songs Set to Foreign Poets’ Lyrics were performed by Inna Halatenko and Roman Repka. The seemingly contrasting songs that make up the cycle revealed various hues of the same mood and different aspects of the same eternal theme. The texts on which the cycle is based also deserve special mention: Russian poets of the Silver age stand there side by side with a French medieval poet Francois Villon. The cycle themes can be briefly described as an attempt to understand the past and the future, comprehend and accept the losses.
Another Kyiv Music Fest undoubted success was a symphony concert rich in premieres. The Kyiv Camerata soloists’ ensemble directed by Valery Matiukhyn rendered Ukrainian avant-gardist maestro Svyatoslav Krutykov’s Little Symphony No. 1 and Little Chamber Symphony No. 2 for Flute and Orchestra. Levkovych’s Melancholy Music for cello and orchestra and Zahortsev’s Concert for flute and chamber ensemble were also premiered. Master of shocking performances Serhiy Zazhytko also stunned the audience, who awaited another synthetic show combining poetry, pantomime, and audio effects. The public will no doubt appreciate his Funeral Dances for string orchestra pizzicato.
At the festival’s closing concert the audience was treated to a pleasant surprise, that is, Karl Orff’s fabled Carmina Burana scenic cantata. It is an open secret that in spite of its popularity it is very rarely performed in Ukraine. Moreover, music lovers will appreciate the rare opportunity to hear the famous opus brilliantly rendered by the Dumka Capella and the National Orchestra of Ukraine directed by Volodymyr Sirenko.
Today contemporary music festivals provide perhaps the only opportunity to learn about musical novelties and refresh the non-commercial, from the viewpoint of concert organizations, creative works of contemporary Ukrainian authors.
