Performers:
Peter Jablonski, piano (Sweden)
Symphony Orchestra INSO-Lviv
Paul Mann, conductor (United Kingdom)

Programme:
Johannes Brahms — Tragic Overture, Op. 81
Borys Lyatoshynsky — Piano Concerto, Op. 54 (Slavic)
Antonín Dvořák — Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70

On 13 September, INSO-Lviv Orchestra opens its 2025–26 concert season with the event «TOUCH».
This evening is the result of reflecting on past experience and returning with renewed energy, fresh ideas, and deeper perspectives. «Touch» is about connection, closeness, and the creation of something new — much like in Michelangelo’s famous fresco.
The programme offers three distinct “touches”: of the heart, of history, and of identity.
We begin with Johannes Brahms’s Tragic Overture — a work in which every note resounds like the breath of time. There is no pathos here, only dignified, focused sorrow — like a gaze into the depths of our own present experience, where memory and beauty are inseparable. This opening stands as a symbol of light breaking through the veil of darkness.
At the centre of the programme is the Piano Concerto by Ukrainian classic Borys Lyatoshynsky (Op. 54), also known as the Slavic. Composed at the turning point of eras and in the context of turbulent history, this concerto is a kind of musical manifesto — deeply personal yet profoundly national. It offers a rare chance to hear a major work still infrequently performed on Ukrainian stages. Within it lie anxiety and protest, tenderness and fury, a longing for harmony in dark times.
The soloist is Peter Jablonski, the acclaimed Swedish pianist who won the Swedish Grammis Award for Classical Album of the Year. His interpretation of a Ukrainian masterpiece promises to make this encounter especially intriguing.
The evening culminates with Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor. Born of pain yet directed towards hope, this symphony eschews superficial brilliance in favour of inner concentration and latent strength — like a river carrying the memory of generations, flowing through sorrow towards light. Each movement holds both struggle and reconciliation, a deep love for the people, for one’s roots, for that which shapes the human soul. As the final work, it becomes the closing chord of the evening — a gentle touch upon all that has been lived through, upon what has made us more aware.
At the podium is Paul Mann, well known to Lviv audiences, and at the piano, Peter Jablonski — a pianist of rare emotional sensitivity and philosophical depth of sound.
In a time when the world speaks to us in raised voices, classical music returns us to the strength of silence, to the value of attentiveness, to the depth of presence. «Touch» is the beginning of trust. «Touch» is more than sound. It is a meeting with art, with depth, with oneself — for the path to truth is never a crowd’s march, but a personal journey.