Contrasts 30. Closing of the Festival

Performers:

• Anna Ivanyushenko , harpsichord
• Academic Chamber Orchestra "Virtuosos of Lviv"
• Vincent Kozlovsky, conductor

Program:

• Zbigniew Buyarskyi (1933–2018, PL), "Musica Domestica" (1977)
• Yuriy Pikush (*1998, UA). "Terra Clastri" for harpsichord and string orchestra (2024). World premiere
• Oleg Bezborodko (*1973, UA). "The Tale of the Kings" for string orchestra based on the painting of the same name by Mikaloyus Čiurlionis (2003, 2007)
• Lyubava Sydorenko (*1979, UA). "Octagon" for string orchestra (2014)
• Yevhen Stankovich (*1942, UA). Symphony No. 1 "Sinfonia Larga" for strings (1973)

The moderator is Polina Kordovska

Does diversity always mean discord? 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. For three decades, the "Contrasts" festival, despite the controversy inherent in the name, united. 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" give the opportunity to choose.

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 last 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". Buyarsky says that he created a work 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 a student of Zbigniev Buyarskyi, a well-known woman from Lviv, Lyubava 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, contexts. This was also the case with the piece for eight cellos "Octagon", which will be performed in the orchestral version at the festival for the second time since 2014.

The desire to reveal the musical in painting and 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, Oleg Bezborodyk from Kyiv. In "The Tale of the Kings", as the author notes, he recreated the atmosphere "with the flavor of the north wind" at 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, Yuriy Pikush tried to find thin threads of interaction between the timbres of the instruments, which are whimsically intertwined, wandering the imaginary planet Terra Cla (vesyn) 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 whether they will return to their original circle under the force of irresistible gravity, the listener will be able to understand only at the very end.

Evgeny Stankovich'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 Stankovich's work. And, ultimately, in which 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 pace, but also denoting the majestic character - Larga , monumenting the constancy and endurance of art to the challenges of subsequent eras.

Maria Levkovych, Dzvenislava Safyan