Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival to Return to Kaufman Music Center in March

The Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival (UCMF) has announced its return to the Kaufman Music Center in New York City for three concerts, March 17 to 19, 2023, honoring the "father" of Ukrainian contemporary music, Borys Liatoshynsky (3 January 1895 - 15 April 1968). Liatoshynsky is among Ukraine's most important pedagogues, training entire generations of composers at the National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kyiv in the first half of the 20th century. The Festival will present Liatoshynsky's music, including his string quartets, alongside works by his students, his students' students, and present-day composers influenced by his work.

As Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its second year, the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival reaffirms its commitment to the preservation of Ukraine's musical history at a time when its cultural identity remains at stake.

The 2023 festival, entitled "A Tribute to Borys Liatoshynsky", will open with "Inspirations" on March 17, 2023. "Inspirations" will introduce audiences to the music of Liatoshynsky by placing his works alongside composers who inspired him, including Alban Berg (whose work Liatoshynsky championed), and Liatoshynsky's own students, Valentyn Sylvestrov and Volodymyr Zahorstev, members of the Kyiv Avant-Garde.

The second concert, "Evolutions", on March 18, 2023, will chart the variety of ways Ukrainian music has developed since Liatoshynsky's death by exploring the music of his "descendants." This program includes pieces by contemporary Ukrainian composers who can trace their pedagogical genealogy to Liatoshynsky, including Serhii Vilka, Alex Voytenko, Andrii Didorenko, Anna Arkushyna, Olena Ilnytska, and Yana Shliabanska.

Though still largely unknown outside Ukraine, Liatoshynsky's music reveals fascinating parallels with Western works. In the final concert, "Conversations", on March 19, 2023, Liatoshynsky's Third and Fourth String Quartets will be presented alongside the String Quartet No. 3 of Béla Bartók, with whom he shared similar interests in national musics, and the Sextet of American composer Aaron Copland, whose own career chartered similar paths to those of his Ukrainian contemporary.

Tickets start at $15, and are available for purchase on the Kaufman Music Center website or by calling (212) 501-3330.

FULL PROGRAM LISTING

2023 Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival: A Tribute to Borys Liatoshynsky (1895-1968)

"Inspirations" | Friday, March 17, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.

Kaufman Music Center, Merkin Hall

129 W 67th St, New York, NY 10023

Borys Liatoshynsky, Violin Sonata, op. 19 (1926)

Alban Berg, Vier Stücke for Clarinet and Piano, op.5 (1913)

Borys Liatoshynsky, Two Romances, op. 8 (1921) [World premiere of original German text]

Borys Liatoshynsky, Two Pieces for Viola and Piano, op.65 (1965)

Valentyn Sylvestrov, Mystères (1964)

Volodymyr Zahorstev, Volumes (1965)

Borys Liatoshynsky, Concert Etude-Rondo, op.55 (1962, rev. 1967)

2023 Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival: A Tribute to Borys Liatoshynsky (1895-1968)

"Evolutions" | Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 8:00 p.m.

Kaufman Music Center, Merkin Hall

129 W 67th St, New York, NY 10023

Serhii Vilka, Switchings (2020) [US premiere]

Alex Voytenko, GZI, (2009, rev. 2014) [US premiere]

Andrii Didorenko, Seven Ukrainian Folk Songs (2022)

Anna Arkushyna, "...So they grow like sunflowers", (2022) [US premiere]

Olena Ilnytska, Nocturne for solo piano (2019) [US premiere]

Yana Shliabanska, atropa belladonna (2022) [US premiere]

Duo SAS

2023 Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival: A Tribute to Borys Liatoshynsky (1895-1968)

"Conversations" | Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 3:00 p.m.

Kaufman Music Center, Merkin Hall

129 W 67th St, New York, NY 10023

Borys Liatoshynsky, Quartet No. 3, op. 21 (1928)

Béla Bartók, Quartet No. 3 (1927)

Borys Liatoshynsky, Quartet No. 4, op. 43 ("Suite on Ukrainian Themes") (1943)

Aaron Copland, Sextet (1937)

About the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival

In 2020, the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival (UCMF) set out on a mission to showcase Ukraine's complex and unique contributions to contemporary music through performance and discussion with scholars, performers, and composers.

Headed by American musicologist Leah Batstone, UCMF became an immediate hit, reaching its maximum capacity and hosting over 500 visitors. In 2021, UCMF found a permanent home at the Kaufman Music Center in New York City. In December 2022, UCMF co-organized the sold-out concert event "Notes from Ukraine: 100 Years of Carol of the Bells" at Carnegie Hall.

Following the start of Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine, Batstone spoke with Alex Ross at The New Yorker: "The lie that Ukraine has no culture of its own is the basis of Putin's claim that the national is a Soviet invention and contributes to the rhetoric he uses to justify invading a sovereign country." (Valery Gergiev and the Nightmare of Music Under Putin)

"Liatoshynsky's importance can be found not only in his engagement with nearly all the important 20th century compositional trends and his influence on generations of musicians who followed him, but he himself is evidence a European-looking and experimental music culture has long been an element of Ukraine's history."

More information: https://www.ucmfnyc.com/

About Borys Liatoshynsky

Born in Zhytomyr in 1895, Borys Liatoshynsky was among the first students at the newly opened Kyiv Conservatory, where he studied with famed composer Reinhold Gliere. Liatoshynsky would himself spend most of his career in Kyiv except for a short period when he held a professorship at the Moscow Conservatory. His music spans a wide variety of genres and styles, from early impressionist piano works to atonal experiments to symphonies and operas. Liatoshynsky was also an influential pedagogue who taught the members of the so-called Kyiv Avant-Garde or the Sixtiers [Shistdesyatnyky], a generation of dissident composers who resisted the edicts of Socialist Realism. This cohort included Ukraine's most famous living composer, Valentyn Sylvestrov.

As part of the festival's mission to put Ukrainian music into the hands of the world's top musicians, this year's festival will feature some of New York's best contemporary ensembles including Unheard-of Ensemble, Talujon, and Bergamot Quartet. Festival performers also include a number of local Ukrainian musicians who have been performing to benefit Ukraine since February 24, 2022. These include Solomiya Ivakhiv, Andrii Didorenko, Valeriya Sholokhova, and the Shelest Piano Duo. We are also proud to feature musicians from Ukraine including saxophonist Vladyslav Dovhan, currently at the New England Conservatory, and bandurist and composer Volodymyr Voyt, who has remained in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion.

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