Artists:

• Anna Ivaniushenko, harpsichord
• Academic Chamber Orchestra “Lviv Virtuosos”
• Vincent Kozlovskyi, conductor

Program:

• Zbigniew Bujarski (1933–2018, PL), “Musica Domestica” (1977)
• Yurii Pikush (*1998, UA). “Terra Clastri” for harpsichord and string orchestra (2024). World premiere
• Oleh Bezborodko (*1973, UA). “The Tale of the Kings” for string orchestra after the painting by Mikaloyus Čiurlionis (2003, 2007)
• Liubava Sydorenko (*1979, UA). “Octagon” for string orchestra (2014)
• Yevhen Stankovych (*1942, UA). Symphony No. 1 “Sinfonia Larga” for strings (1973)

Does diversity always mean disagreement? For centuries, art remains a space where different styles and currents can continue simultaneously, because each of the past eras has left its mark, and therefore even after thousands of years there will be people willing to hear Mozart or reproduce his style. The “Contrasts” festival, despite the controversy inherent in the name, united for three decades. He created a community of like-minded performers, composers, and listeners thirsty for new music. Showing that new music can be different: written this year, or unfairly forgotten, it can speak to us in the language of dissonances, or in melodies close to memory. It has numerous directions, among which “Contrasts” allow choosing.

The arch of this year’s “Contrasts” will be the first and last events from the Lviv Virtuosos Academic Chamber Orchestra, which will take the stage on the final evening under the direction of another constant participant of the festival – conductor Vincent Blazej Kozlowski from Poland. Therefore, one of the highlights of this program will be the play of the Polish composer Zbigniew Buyarski – “Musica Domestica”. Bujarski says that he created a piece that would feel like a dreamy, distant and perhaps even non-existent ideal home that each of us aspires to. This gives a special sentiment to the end of the “Contrasts” festival, an event that becomes the dream home of new music for two weeks every year.

Symbolically, the concert will also feature a piece by Zbigniev Bujarski’s student, a well-known Lviv composer, Liubava Sydorenko. For her, despite the most violent clashes of hostile forces, music acquires subtle sonographic features and deeply metaphorical, and at the same time always encouraging. The composition for eight cellos “Octagon”, which will be played in the orchestral version at the festival for the second time since 2014, became the same.

The desire to reveal the musical in painting and to preserve the author’s reflection on the images of colors of Mikaloyus Čiurlionis in musical notation led to the appearance of the work of another well-known composer, Oleh Bezborodko from Kyiv. In “The Tale of the Kings”, as the author notes, he recreated the atmosphere “with the flavor of the north wind” first only in sounds, and after the composition, recalling the famous painting of the Lithuanian artist and – also the composer – he combined the fates of these artifacts.

Meanwhile, to the newly created music for harpsichord and strings, a young artist from Dnipro, the winner of the Second All-Ukrainian Composer Competition named after Myroslav Skoryk, Yurii Pikush tried to find thin threads of interaction between the timbres of the instruments, which are whimsically intertwined, wandering the imaginary planet Terra Cla (harpsichord) Stri (ngs). The form of this work consists of several contrasting episodes that alternate, but each time appear in an updated form. At a certain moment, the strings and harpsichord reach the highest possible register, as if trying to escape beyond the limits of their terra… However, whether they will be able to overcome the limit of their capabilities, or under the force of irresistible gravity, the listener will be able to understand only at the very end.

Yevhen Stankovych’s “Sinfonia Larga” also became a test of strength at one time, because it was Symphony No. 1 that fate predicted would become the source from which the composer’s unique style began, which brought together and became an early reflection of all the constants of modern Stankovych’s work. And, ultimately, in we can now look for answers to how the titans of new Ukrainian music grew up. As if anticipating this, Stankovic gives it a programmatic name, emphasizing not only the tempo but also denoting the majestic character – Larga, monumenting the constancy and endurance of art to the challenges of subsequent eras.

Mariia Levkovych, Dzvenyslava Safian