Voices. Evening of Premieres

Heading towards the "Kyiv Music Fest – 2026" festival!

"VOICES. Evening of Premieres" is a concert about life in all its complexity and polyphony: memory and the future, pain and joy, personal loss and collective hope. The program unfolds between two poles — memory and faith in the future.

One of the central pieces will be Hanna Havrylets's Stabat Mater for choir and orchestra, where the image of the Stabat Mater at the cross emerges as a symbol of human suffering, maternal grief, loss, and empathy. The theme of personal memory continues with the world premiere of Victoria Poleva's In Memory of Oleh Pavliuchenkov, dedicated to the prominent cinematographer, director, photographer, and cultural figure who passed away this year. Personal memory in this music becomes a way to preserve the presence of someone no longer by our side.

The other pole of the program is the future, hope, and faith in victory. This is precisely what Zoltan Almashi's Chamber Symphony We Shall Win speaks to, written as a reaction to the events of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Its title sounds like a collective voice of hope.

Between these two poles lies a vibrant panorama of diverse musical worlds. Contemporary American music will be represented by Nico Muhly’s violin concerto Shrink — a Ukrainian premiere featuring soloist Bohdana Pivnenko. The piece focuses on the idea of the compression and expansion of time, where music unfolds as a continuous process of change in density, timbre, tension, and the inner breath of form.

Another voice in the concert is the Ukrainian folkloric element. Volodymyr Zubytsky's Colomyika la vita will be performed in a version for bandura and orchestra, arranged by Andrii Shust. Kolomyika intonations, the timbre of the bandura, and rhythmic energy will infuse the program with spontaneity and vivid folk colors.

Thus, various musical voices — contemporary and traditional, personal and universal — weave together a complete picture of complex and contradictory life, where pain and resilience, memory and forward momentum coexist side by side.