Kyrylo Karabyts is a prominent Ukrainian conductor who spends most of his time on concert tours abroad (where he is known as Kirill Karabits). For the past six years he has been Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (UK) and, since 2013, the art director of the youth I, CULTURE Orchestra (Poland). Next year he will be appointed as music director and principal conductor of the Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskapelle Weimar. Alongside, the maestro has been working out and implementing very interesting projects in Ukraine. In June, he appeared at the Lviv Opera with a concert featuring works by Donbas composers. On September 5, he will conduct the concert program “Madonna Ukraine” made up of works by his father, composer Ivan Karabyts, at the Ukraina Palace in Kyiv, and will stage two concerts at the National Opera and on the Maidan, on Independence Day.
MORE CREATIVE FREEDOM IN WEIMAR
Let me congratulate you on behalf of The Day on your appointment as music director and principal conductor in Weimar. You’ll have to do a lot of conducting next year. I’ve known you as a symphony conductor. Why the interest in the opera?
“I’ve taken an interest in conducting operas since I was a conservatory student. The opera opens up vast horizons for various projects. I mean the resources: the orchestra, choir, soloists, stage setting, production design, you name it. In Weimar I’ll conduct the orchestra and shape the repertoire relying on my creative preferences. When you are a guest star, it means just that, a guest who comes and goes. Now I have a contract for several years. This allows one to make plans. They are giving me far more creative freedom.”
You mean like shaping the repertoire?
“Yes. And more. Today the company management, the supplies manager, the director, aren’t musicians. They badly need help from a professional who will explain the repertoire. It is hard to explain to a non-musician the meaning of dramatic soprano. They’re looking forward to having a musician on executive staff who will take part in the making of the repertoire policy, among other things. This green light for lots of daring projects looks very attractive.”
Any plans for the first couple of seasons?
“Weimar spells boundless opportunities. Goethe was chief stage director for a number of years and wrote plays for the theater. Liszt spent half his life in Weimar and wrote practically all of his symphony pieces there. Schiller lived there and Wagner’s Lohengrin premiered in Weimar. Strauss worked there. Anyway, I told them quite frankly that I wouldn’t want to stay in a museum city. Yes, it would be an exciting, exotic experience with all those items on display, but I’d want something to happen to make Weimar known as a place where culture is being made.
“The first year we’ll try to produce semi-staged concerts, ones that can be performed in a concert hall. This will allow us to go on concert tours and make creative experiments. Also, a new production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg is planned for 2016-17.”
That would mean shouldering a great deal of responsibility.
“Precisely. Imagine the excitement of conducting such operas in Germany! Then there will be Wagner’s Parsifal in 2017-18. I can’t wait to conduct these masterpieces in the composer’s homeland.”
What about the Staatskapelle?
“That’s a great symphony orchestra and it also acts as an opera one, along with a series of concerts as a separate symphony orchestra. They have a good concert hall, the Weimarhalle, where they stage annual concert series. The first time I got there was as a guest performer.”
What kind of project?
“A concert, and I received a last-minute invitation. The program had already been made, including Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony that I had to have recorded a week prior to the concert. I had always felt that the German orchestra was very rigid, almost impossible to move an inch from where it stood, that everything had to be explained in the minutest detail. But [in Weimar] I found myself among musicians who were ready to experiment with new approaches, who did so happily during rehearsals. I had nothing to lose and I felt sure I could handle the Fifth Symphony, so I just relaxed and didn’t even try to prove anything to myself when conducting the symphony. They apparently liked my rendition and later invited me to conduct Leoncavallo’s La Boheme, after only one rehearsal – they wanted to see how I’d handle that one. I had conducted the opera a number of times, so it wasn’t a problem.”
PEOPLE WHO DON’T GO TO THE PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY SHOULD RECONSIDER
I’ve been closely following preparations for Project “Madonna Ukraine” at the Ukraina Palace, considering that pop music is a totally new format for you. Why did you take interest in it?
“Frankly, I’ve always taken an interest in light symphonic music. Must be from my childhood when dad and mom took me to such concerts. Since then pop music has remained something extremely enjoyable, when you hear that kind of music and feel it enwrap you, when you hear tunes that sound ideal to you, tunes that get right through, that don’t make you tense with concentration but also offer food for thought. And some of the lyrics are just great. For me it’s a kind of folk music done by a [professional] orchestra.”
Photo from Kyrylo KARABYTS’ private archive
I believe your father, the noted composer, Ivan Karabyts, found himself in a similar situation. And this considering his big avant-garde heritage. He was also a great melodist. His pop music scores were among the best at the time. I know that quite a few avant-garde composers would want nothing better than produce a beautiful melody. Ivan Karabyts could do that in a jiffy.
“That’s right. He would often say, ‘Symphonies are symphonies, but what would make the man in the street remember me?’ He realized that instrumental music won’t be appreciated by the masses because this is an elite kind of music. In fact, my father came from a very ordinary family. His father was a truck driver and his brother, a coal miner. His mother was a schoolteacher. I think that deep inside he felt part of the common folk, and so do I. It is true that big-time [classical] music is what I mostly do, but I especially enjoy those rare occasions on which I can communicate with ordinary people with their independent views. Most never set foot in the Philharmonic Society. I wish I could persuade some of them to reconsider. Perhaps that’s why pop music attracts me so much.
“Some believe there’s no good variety/pop music in Ukraine. There is, but it must be promoted. Together with the Ukraina Palace manager, Roman Nedzelsky, we’ve made plans for a series of concerts commemorating the best periods in the history of Ukrainian pop music. The first concert will feature Ivan Karabyts’ songs and overtures – a courtesy to me, I guess. Then there will be concerts dedicated to Ihor Shamo and others, there will be lots of good music. By the way, before a concert at the Ukraina Palace, I walked over to a Kyiv musician I had always regarded as a top-notch variety/pop orchestral conductor. I wanted to know how come there weren’t anyone as good as he there. His response left me stunned. The man avoided the subject of variety music. The way he sounded was as though there were no such thing. He wanted to discuss Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich. The impression was the subject of variety music embarrassed him.”
Well, that’s a different story. Something that has long become part of our life, something we really like but somehow feel ashamed to talk about. I mean variety music.
“The notion of variety music is interpreted in a number of ways. Some associate it with Soviet propaganda songs, others with low quality rock music, still others simply don’t know. Too bad. Variety/pop music is a very interesting genre enjoyed all over the world. In the United States practically every big orchestra like the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia, and so on, has a double. Chicago Symphony and Chicago Pops Orchestra, with many CS musicians who join CPO to play an entirely different kind of music, the kind the man in the street understands and dances to.”
How do you think musicians can take part in various projects?
“That’s what the diversity of music is all about. You can play with Chicago Symphony conducted by Riccardo Muti and that same evening step into a jazz club and keep improvising until midnight. This is just proof of your musical erudition. Not all musicians can do that. Those who can are very interesting versatile performers.
“Take France. They’ve formed a sect in contemporary music centered on Pierre Boulez and his musical language, and any dissident composer is denied access. All such music festivals and projects are kept a la Boulez. This is wrong in principle. Such artificial devotions will continue, of course, but they have no future.”
What you’re talking about is discarding one stereotype and adopting the next. What they call “new music” is in most cases nothing new. Unwritten rules deny real creative freedom.
“An impasse, if you will, and that’s precisely where our contemporary music is today. Contact with live audiences cut short, replaced by a closed intellectual circle with restricted access rules. In fact, the same is true of ancient music using authentic instruments. Baroque ensembles where an ordinary conductor is shown the door, and the baroque conductors are a rare species, they can build a career only with such ensembles. All those you-don’t-know-but-we-do restrictions are leading music in the wrong direction, away from the original concept. Music should be accessible to all.”
Talking about accessibility. How can Ukrainian culture be made accessible and promoted abroad, so we can be regarded there as a cultured and musical nation?
“I think there should be cultural institutions that wouldn’t act in lieu of the Ministry of Culture, but which would collaborate with that ministry. A graphic example is the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Poland. This institute is engaged in big-time cultural projects. It is funded by the state and by sponsor donations. It has a team of managers who specialize in various fields. They are working miracles! When it came to commemorate Lutoslawski’s centennial, they arranged for his compositions to be performed by the world’s most reputed orchestras. They boast dozens of such projects. Such institutions funded by the government – not solely by volunteers as is common practice in Ukraine – are capable of bringing about changes for the better and improving the [international] image of the state.”
“YOUNG PEOPLE RECOGNIZE NO STANDARDS, NO PREJUDICE”
Could a youth project like I, ORCHESTRA (with you as the art director) help improve that image?
“Poles are fond of symbols. For them the younger generation – young professionals with burning enthusiasm – symbolizes the future of the nation. Putting together a team of such young enthusiasts could become a good tool for the promotion of cultural and political goals. There is no youth orchestra in Ukraine whereas they exist in practically every more or less developed country.”
Any other advantages of a youth orchestra?
“With a youth orchestra you can do things you wouldn’t dare imagine with a professional one. Young people recognize no standards, no prejudice. They can keep evolving for as long as their energy allows.”
I assume a youth orchestra spells regular master classes and workshop seminars.
“Absolutely. It has several functions. The social one in the first place. I can assure you that if Ukraine had a single youth orchestra that would perform classical pieces and pop music – the kind the masses can appreciate – with matching enthusiasm, the effect would be explosive. And there is the pedagogical aspect. Such an orchestra would help train professional musicians who would play there as part of the [conservatory] curriculum. In Ukraine, conservatory graduates are entitled to play first fiddles in a national orchestra. In Europe, a conservatory graduate in a national orchestra is a rare exception because this musician has no professional experience. There is a large gap between a musician with 20 years of orchestra playing behind him and one fresh from conservatory. There should be some kind of filtration, internship, considering the difference between professional activity and academic training. Finally, such youth orchestras would serve as labs for experimenting with unconventional approaches.”
Should such an orchestra be in the I, ORCHESTRA project format or kept on a permanent basis?
“That depends on the objective. If it’s training, then the project format is best, so the musicians change every year or twice a year. Same regarding auditions. There is the National Youth Orchestra in Britain. A phenomenal one. The children are trained so well, they match every international adult standard. Also, there is something exotically exciting about an orchestra whose musicians gather to play and then just leave. Then other musicians come from another generation. Forming such an orchestra is a serious project, like establishing a higher school.”
I, CULTURE Orchestra’s next concert in Ukraine coincides with our most important holiday, Independence Day. Is it a coincidence?
“The orchestra wanted to play on the Maidan. They said so in no uncertain words. We will perform at the National Opera at 5 p.m. and on the Maidan at 9:30 p.m. I’m not sure about the program, but there will be the Finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Also, there will be a guest star violinist from Georgia, Liza Batiashvili. She was happy to accept our invitation, saying she takes to heart Ukraine, what is happening here, and is eagerly preparing for the trip. I think these concerts will be very important for the orchestra and for the Ukrainian public.”
