The tour opens on July 12 at the Saint-Eustache Church in Paris, and includes concerts at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw two days later, followed by performances at the Crist Shipyard in Gdynia on Poland’s Baltic coast on July 23, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on July 29, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York on August 1, and at Washington’s Kennedy Center on August 4.
The repertoire includes Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony sung by Ukrainian soloists Olga Bezsmertna (soprano), Nataliia Kukhar (mezzo-soprano), Valentyn Dytiuk (tenor) and Andrii Kymach (bass-baritone), accompanied by a chorus singing in Ukrainian.
In some concerts, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra will be joined in Beethoven’s Ninth by local choirs made up of members of the Ukrainian community. For example, in London it will be The Songs for Ukraine Chorus, which was established last year as part of the Royal Opera House’s Creative Exchange programme.
All the concerts on the tour begin with Bucha. Lacrimosa for violin and orchestra written by Ukrainian composer Victoria Poleva as a commemoration of the victims of Russian atrocities in the town of Bucha during the early weeks of the war. Ukraine’s Marko Komonko is the soloist.
The orchestra is led by Canadian-Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, who also stood at the helm of the ensemble in 2022 and 2023.
The tour is organized by Askonas Holt Agency, the Polish National Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Informational Policy.
A new addition to this year’s tour will be the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra’s appearance at the Baltic Opera Festival in northern Poland later this month.
As part of the project, the orchestra will take part in two performances of Puccini’s Turandot, on July 20 and 25, in the spectacular setting of the Forest Opera in the coastal resort of Sopot, one of Europe’s largest open-air theatres.
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra was established in 2022 as an initiative by the Metropolitan Opera and the Polish National Opera. It includes refugees who have been forced to flee their country for safety, Ukrainian members of European orchestras, and musicians from Ukraine-based ensembles.
(mk/gs)