“News from Ukraine”. 1996. №1

Olena Berehova.

“KYIV MUSIC FEST’95” GETS OVER THE BORDERS

Conserts of the 6th Ukranian international festival “Kyiv Musiс-Fest’95” took place in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, September 30 — October 7. The event brought together musicians from France, The United States, Canada, Israel, Japan, Australia and elsewhere. The geography of the fastival is expanding year in and year out, overcoming the great distances for the sake of this prestigious event.

The audience of the festival is also growing all the time. This year, music lovers could fully satisfy their diversified tastes — classics, jazz, avantgarde. In the 18 chamber, 6 symphony and 3 jazz and choral concerts one could find something close to his or her heart.

What distinguished the festival was the new discoveries. American composer George Crumb, whose music was played in Ukraine for the first time, litararily astounded the audiences with enigmatically-mystic compositions: “Eleven echoes of Autumn”, “Idyll” and “Night of the Four Moons”. The appearance of such out-of-the ordinary composer at the festival only underscored its prestige among similar cultural occasions.

American musicians and producer Virko Baley showed his worth, in a unique manner, already at the first concert, which unlike previous years began with classic works. He perfomed in two capacities: both as a pianist and conductor. His Concerto No.27 for piano and orchestra by Wolfgang Mozart, which he played jointly with the “Kyiv Camerata” ensemble was remarkable. It was a surprise for many, but this tipe of the versatile musician comes to appear more often in artistic practices. It was a common thing in Mozart’s time as well: a performer on different instruments, singer, conductor and composer in one person.

Mishel Portal from France approaches the level of such musicians. He plays the bass-clarinet, saxophones and bandoneon, also writes music and conducts a jazz quartet, composed of Bojan Zulfikarpasic (key instruments), Fransis Moutin (double-bass) and Jerome Perin(percussion instruments.) The high skills of Portal’s jazz quartet, subtle taste and inspiration enraptured the audiences and won stormly applause.

The performance of young pianists — prize winner of the Horowitz memorial competition were a great success too. By the way, over the six years of the festival’s existence those wasn’t the first attempt to expand the age qualification of its participants. During the First “Kyiv Music Fest” in 1990, young musicians held a Forum, which separated the following year to become an independent musical festival of the young. But never before did children take part in such prestigious festivals as the “Kyiv Music Fest”. Organizators as though remembered that these nice and clever children were the future of our art. It was a real pleasure to hear Bach performed by Oleksiy Yemtsov, or the Second concerto for the piano and orchestra in the interpretation of Oleksiy Koltakov, or such young virtuosis as Serhei Kochen (Israel), Vasyl Netuk (Belarus), Antonio Homes (USA), Ukrainian Denis Bohomol, Olena Ivanenko, Olena Klyuchariova, Artem Lyakhovych, Yulia Shved and others.

Of tremendous interest was the Fifth Marian and Ivanna Kots Composition Competition. This time it was dedicated to women composers of Ukraine. Many think that the prerogative of writing music belongs to men. We thus spiritually impoverish ourselves and our culture and undervalue many of our talented women. The competition had in mind to discover most bright talents and support them materially. Of the ten compositions submitted the jury gave the palm to Hanna Havrylets for her penetrating lyrical composition “In Memoriam” for chamber orchestra. Three participants were awarded consolation prizes: Janna Kolodub, Olena Leonova and Yulia Homelska.

The hit of the “Kyiv Music Fest’95” was a soiree of dramatized music compositions, held on October 1 — the International day of music. This event aroused much discordance of opinion. Oleksander Kozarenko’s “Don Juan from Kolomiya” — a free interpretation of ideas by well-known West Ukranian author Zaher-Mazoh — carried listeners into the quaint world of mysties and erotic fantasy. The piece gained even more weight due to the splendid performance of the Lviv ballet group “Aquarius”(artistic director — Oksana Lan), Kyiv Saxophones’ quartet and the “Kyiv Percussion” Ensemble.

The composition “Oh, Steppe, you are so wide” revealed quite opposite quolities of yet another young composer, Serhiy Zazhytko. It was a bold parody on contamporary music, and life generally. The performers would yell, whistled, stamp their feet, jump and even pound a metal pail on the floor, trying in this manner of a new protest to the society, or announce of a new style in art. Their performance seems to have suited a rock-concert rather than a major festival. Strange but the audience reacted differently. Some even whistled and hopped in time. The music (if it may be called altogether) destroyed the “wall” which always exists between a performer and listeners.

Music art of the end of the 20th century is complex and heterogeneous. It combines elements of the previous styles and epochs, therefore, it’s not simple to evaluate such phenomena correctly. Possibly that experiments will lead to some new, unknown style, and compositions of Kozarenko and Zazhytko will be taken as a preparatory stage.

Other composers, too, demonstrated interesting and fresh compositions: American Arthur Jarvinen, Terry Raley, Louis Andriessen and Earl Kim; Canadian John Burge and Ann Southam; Ukrainian V.Silverstov, Ye.Stankovych, L.Dychko,

Yu. Laniuk, M.Skoryk and others.

The array of musical personalities added to the bright panorama of program “polystilistics”. Most conspicuous performers at the festival were soloist T.Piminova (Ukraine), Philippe Cuper (clarinet, France), Aleksei Koshvanets (violin, Russia), Howie Smith (saxophone, USA), soloist Andrea Axelrod (USA) and pianists Nil Crack and Steven Crawford (both from the USA). Listeners were enthusiastic about the “Gamma” vocal ensemble from Dnipropetrovsk (artistic director Mykhailo Tsyhutkin) and the “Jazz-choral” from Kriviy Rih under Oleksander Hebel, as well as concerts of the “ARCHI” chamber orchestra conducted by Saim Akchil from Turkey; “Virtuosos’ Parade” ensemble of percussion instruments under Oleksander Blinov; Zaporizhzhia Symphony Orchestra (artistic director Viacheslav Redya); “California E.A.R. Unit” ensemble from the USA; Lviv chamber orchestra of the Mykola Lysenko Higher Institute of Music (conductor Myroslav Skoryk). Lovers of choral singing enjoyed much the performances of such collectives as the Maiboroda Chamber Choir of the National Radio Company of Ukraine (artistic director Victor Skoromny); “Dumka” state academic choir of Ukraine (chief conductor Yevhen Savchuk); “Khreshchatyk” chamber choir (artistic director Larysa Bukhonska); and the Kyiv “Dzvony” choral company (conductor Dmytro Radyk).

The musicians were offered the best grounds: the interest in the festival was so great that the concert halls could not accomodate all enthusiasts. Unfortunately, some concerts were held half-empty houses. The reason is probably in the poorly arranged schedules. These and some other organizational shortcomings directly reflected the festival’s financial problems.

The thing is that the time of holding the festival concidered with reorganizational measures in the Ukrainians Ministry of Culture, which was supposed to finance the festival by the Composers Union of Ukraine and some foreign funds and organizations.

But no financial and organizational problems could the festive atmosphere of the event. The festival carried on the good idea of contacts, started in previous year, among artists from different countries — not only at concerts but during friendly talkes as well. Now Hall No.36 in the Tchaikovsky Academy of Music became the center for such creative get-togethers. There at the so-call “fest-academies” one could talk about art with composers Bozhidar Kos (Australia), Menachem Zur (Israel), George Crumb (USA) or conductors Edwin London (USA), Sakae Sakakibara (Japan) or with other musicians. Despite they spoke different languages, services of an interpretater were of no use since the language of music doesn’t requier translation.

In one of such conversations, an idea was suggested that people often invent some problems for themselves, demanding limits and borders. This is nothing in comparison with the force of art. Music knows no barriers. It penetrates our hearts, touching the strings which will invariably respond to the call of the beautiful. The task of similar festivals is to held people sense that call.

As we see, the “Kyiv Music Fest” is overstepping the limits of its motto: “Ukrainian music in the concept of world culture”. The world culture has already recognized our attainments in music. According to Mr.Kots, one of the festival’s founders, a publisher and patron from the USA, “Kyiv is being gradually transformed in the center of international musical life”.