What's Up?
"I wanted to bring together Ukraine’s best orchestral musicians from home and abroad to demonstrate a proud artistic unity. We are fighting on the cultural front for the freedom of Ukraine."
— Keri-Lynn Wilson
"Our music is our gun!"
Dates:
WARSAW July 28 (Teatr Wielki–Polish National Opera)
LONDON July 31 (BBC Proms)
MUNICH August 1 (Isar Philharmonic Hall)
ORANGE August 2 (Chorégies d’Orange Festival)
BERLIN August 4 (Konzerthaus)
EDINBURGH August 6 (Edinburgh International Festival)
SNAPE MALTINGS August 8 (Snape Maltings)
AMSTERDAM August 11(Amsterdam Concertgebouw Festival)
HAMBURG August 13 (Elbphilharmonie)
DUBLIN August 15 (National Concert Hall)
NEW YORK August 18 & 19 (Lincoln Center)
WASHINGTON D.C. August 20 (Kennedy Center)
Life & Work
Bio:
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra was formed by conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson in artistic defense of their country.
UKRAINIAN FREEDOM ORCHESTRA TOUR BIOGRAPHIES
Maestro Keri-Lynn Wilson’s international career as a guest conductor spans more than 20 years, leading some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras—such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks—and operas at the world’s top opera houses, including Covent Garden, the Bavarian State Opera, Bolshoi Theatre, and the Vienna State Opera. Next season, Ms. Wilson will make her Metropolitan Opera debut, conducting Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and will return to Covent Garden to conduct La Traviata. Ms. Wilson’s work has been praised as “vividly shaped and nuanced” by The New York Times, and “elegantly incisive” by The Telegraph. Ms. Wilson received a nomination for conductor of the year from the Opus Klassik 2020 awards for her recording of Rossini’s Sigismondo with the Bayerische Rundfunk.
Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska made her Metropolitan Opera debut singing the title role of Verdi’s Aida in 2012, followed by the title role of Puccini’s Tosca, Santuzza in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, and Abigaille in Verdi’s Nabucco. This season, she will sing the title role of Puccini’s Turandot at the Met, Abigaille in Nabucco at Covent Garden, and the title role of Aida in Naples and Verona. Recent performance highlights include Aida, Elisabeth in Don Carlo, Tosca, and Abigaille at the National Opera of Ukraine; Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth at the Bavarian State Opera; Leonora in Il Trovatore at La Scala; Tosca in Rome and Barcelona; Abigaille at Deutsche Oper Berlin and in Hamburg; Leonora in La Forza del Destino at Deutsche Oper Berlin and Covent Garden; and Santuzza in concert with the NDR Radiophilharmonie.
Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova has performed with leading ensembles including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Yomiuri Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Utah Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Netherlands Philharmonic.
In 2018, Ms. Fedorova signed with Channel Classics Records and released six albums, including Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra and the duo album Silhouettes with violist Dana Zemtsov. In March, she and Interartists Amsterdam organized a charity concert with members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, cellist Maya Fridman, and percussionist Konstantyn Napolov, raising €111,000 in humanitarian aid for the victims of the war in Ukraine.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
FIRST VIOLINS
Marko Komonko - Concertmaster
Iuliia Rubanova
Andrii Chaikovskyi
Olga Sheleshkova
Mihaly Stefkó
Alisa Kuznetsova
Mykola Haviuk
Viktor Hlybochanu
Marta Bura
Marta Semchyshyn -
Anna Bura
Tetiana Khomenko
Daniil Gonobolin
Iryna Solovei
SECOND VIOLINS
Viktor Ivanov - Principal
Adrian Bodnar
Kateryna Boychuk
Ostap Manko
Yuliya Tokach
Marta Kachkovska
Viktor Semchyshyn
Liudvika Ivanova -
Olha Malyk
Marta Kolomyiets
Maria Sichko
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).