"Senza Sforzando" Ensemble

"Kyiv Music Fest — 2026"

"Who are you really?.." — a question born of memory and lived experience, love and loss, creativity and resistance. In the program by the Senza Sforzando ensemble, which represents Ukraine's contemporary musical culture at Europe's most prestigious music events, modern Ukrainian music resonates as a reflection of this complex existential dimension: memory, closeness, loss, and the search for meaning. The concert features works written between 1998 and 2025 that capture the spirit of their times in distinct ways: the transformation of nature's sounds into reflections and thoughts on war (Ramifications II by Ostap Manuliak); the transience and fragility intertwined with the memory of what has been endured and lost (And Strawberry in Hand by Yuriy Pikush); the complex and often contradictory process of creation (Time “X” or “Farewell” (non-symphony) by Volodymyr Runchak); the story of the birth of love and its loss spanning the symbolic nine months of 2022 (Temporary protection by Andrii Merkhel). Also featured are a musical reimagining of Andrukhovych's "dubious and sad knowledge" (Faustian Holiday by Karmella Tsepkolenko); a musical search for a once-and-for-all defined state that does not exist (Inventions by Mykhailo Shved); and discovering oneself through the presence of another (Who Are You Really? And Who Am I...? by Bohdan Sehin).

Perhaps it is precisely today — through these diverse musical voices and ways of making sense of our shared experience — that we can come closer to the answer.