(SPLEN)DOOR TO UKRAINE: A Guide to Ukrainian Music

Season 3 of a series of chamber concerts and contemporary/electronic experimental music. The aim of organising this series is to introduce the Dutch public to the hidden gems of Ukrainian music from the second half of the 20th century and to enter into the artistic context of Ukraine at that time. Check about previous edition No.2 and edition No. 1

1st May 20.15 – VESNYANKY [SPRING SONGS] Splendor, Amsterdam, NL.  More details here.

6th May 20.00 – VESNYANKY [SPRING SONGS] Goodmesh, Deen Haag, NL. More details here.

Ukrainian folk songs reimagined by an electroacoustic ensemble.

A true spring can only begin when the VESNYANKY—Ukrainian folk spring songs—are sung. Some chase away the lingering winter cold, while others welcome the sun, the birds, and the blossoming earth.

Maryana Golovchenko, voice

Oksana Mukosii, viola

Vladyslav Petryk, clarinet

Anna Antipova, violin, electronics

Antonii Baryshevskyi, piano, synth

Antonii Baryshevsky, the Ukrainian pianist and curator of this series, will perform the music.

Ihor Sukhorukov, a Ukrainian culture enthusiast, will help explore the music's context.

Highlights from the second edition of the (SPLEN)DOOR TO UKRAINE: A Guide to Ukrainian Music series.

Photo credits: Artem Sergeev

Antonii Baryshevskyi on NPO Podium Klassiek

Antonii together with clarinetist Jelmer de Moed performed music piece by Arvo Pärt on NPO Podim Klassiek programme. Watch full programe here

Concert review

The first work featured the participation of Ukrainian pianist Antonii Baryshevskyi, whom I had not had the opportunity to hear since winning the 5th Jaén International Piano Competition in 2009. He demonstrated great maturity in his performance of Franz Liszt's First Concerto, No. 455, in the final with the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada. Already in the introductory chords of the Beethoven concerto, the quality of this performer's sound was evident, gently and sweetly pointing to the main theme and foreshadowing the rhythm of the work's first movement. Thus, it is necessary to highlight how from its first gesture it accentuated its tonal weight and the harmonic subtleties it contains, creating the perception in the listener of a natural spontaneity of discourse, also driven from the piano in a bold and at the same time curious way, as could be perceived in the cadenza, whose authorship by the soloist left the creative dimension of Antonii Baryshevskyi, who respected the spirit of the author from an expansive harmonic formalism of diatonic, well-sonant result. Read here