Echoes of Silence

April 26, 2026, marks the 40th anniversary of the day when the silence of Chernobyl became the voice of a catastrophe that changed the world. On this day, the National Honored Academic Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and the National Honored Academic Chapel of Ukraine "DUMKA," under the baton of conductor Andrii Savchuk, will perform the program "Echoes of Silence" — a musical reflection on pain, memory, and a tribute to the indomitable human spirit.

The concert program brings together three works from different eras, forming a unified confession in the face of tragedy:

• "Our Father" by Maksym Berezovsky (orchestrated by Vsevolod Sirenko) — a prayer by one of the most prominent 18th-century Ukrainian composers, resonating as an eternal plea for peace and hope.

• "Totenfeier" (Funeral Rites) by Gustav Mahler — a symphonic poem that questions the meaning of life on the threshold of Eternity and the possibility of hope after irreparable loss.

• "Black Elegy" in Memory of Chernobyl by Yevhen Stankovych (lyrics by P. Movchan) for choir and orchestra — a work that has become the musical symbol of the Chernobyl disaster; a confession of a person facing tragedy head-on.

"We were witnesses to what should not have happened. And we remember what cannot be forgotten" — these words by Lina Kostenko became the voice of the generation that lived through Chernobyl. Forty years later, the music of Berezovsky, Mahler, and Stankovych continues this conversation — about a pain that does not fade, a hope that gives us the strength to live on, and a memory over which death has no power. Both the visible and the "invisible."