On paper, the concert is given by the philharmonic orchestra of the provincial city of Chernivtsi. But the orchestra is full of new names on Thursday. They come from Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mariupol and other Ukrainian places whose names have been evoking shivers since last month.
“You could say that this concert is given by the entire music community of Ukraine,” says Tetjana Voronova. She organizes Concert for the Whole World, a performance in Chernivtsi by local musicians along with musicians who have fled to the southwestern city. In between the pieces, refugee members of the orchestra tell their stories. The proceeds of the concert, which will be broadcast online, will go to aid organizations and the Ukrainian army.
Watch Concert for the Whole World directly below
‘We play for ammunition’, Voronova says a few hours before the concert via a video link from Chernivtsi. “Our army must be resupplied as soon as possible.”
All over Ukraine, artists perform to collect money for weapons or for spiritual support. Refugee ballet dancers took to Lviv . opera house a video in which they call on NATO to establish a no-fly zone over their country. Kyiv’s symphony orchestra gave ‘a concert for peace’ in central Maidan Square. Ukraine’s most famous poet, Serhij Zjadan, performed on the Kharkiv metro, where residents have been hiding from bombing for weeks. “I’ve never heard such fair applause,” Zjadan said afterwards.
Some artists support soldiers. Kyiv rock bank Bez Obmezhen played this week in a bunker in the capital for a group of soldiers. Also in the party: actors from Kvartal 95, the production house that President Zelensky founded when he was still an actor.
Mass messages of support
But not all artists can participate. Take Voronova’s husband, a flute player. “He traded his flute for a weapon,” says Voronova. “He’s in Irpin now.” Her eyes are full.
Members of the Ukrainian rock band Antytila are now also soldiers. The singer of the band Boombox was injured in fighting around Kyiv. He thanked fans for massive shows of support and said he was already on his way to the front. “My recovery will not take days, but minutes.”
Voronova herself wanted to join the army, but felt compelled to take her children to safety. “No one can protect children better than a mother. It is my duty to be with them now, however much I hate the enemy soldiers who have come to kill us.’
She fled from Bovary, a suburb of Kyiv that came under heavy fire from the Russian army at the beginning of the war. After a sleepless night in a bomb shelter, she wriggled herself and her two children southwest on a crowded train. Chernivtsi, the city where she ended up, turned out to be a melting pot of refugee artists.
Same music, different value
Dmytro Morozov, the conductor of Thursday night’s concert, is from Kharkiv, the city in the northeast that is being heavily bombed. ‘When we started the bombing, I immediately left,’ says Morozov, the conductor of the National Opera in Kharkiv in peacetime. Conducting an orchestra feels different because of the war, he says. “The music hasn’t changed, but its value has.”
The musicians feel empowered by benefit concerts abroad. A concert in Birmingham, featuring performances by world-famous artists, including Ed Sheeran and Camila Cabello, drew millions of viewers last Tuesday and raised $14 million in humanitarian relief.
‘We play for freedom,’ says Voronova. In addition to fundraising, she hopes the concert will show Ukrainian culture to foreigners. ‘Ukraine and Russian culture have often been seen in history as a collective culture, but that is unjustified. The Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko composed in the same years as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, but had a different audience.’
She hopes that more Russian artists will speak out against the war and refuse to perform in Russia. A growing number of Russian artists have spoken out, despite Russian laws punishing criticism of the invasion with a fine or incarceration. Olga Smirnova, prima ballerina at the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, left for the National Ballet in Amsterdam because of her aversion to the invasion. The Bolshoy music director resigned. Popular rappers demonstrated against the war. But most artists keep quiet or say they have no opinion about the war.
“They don’t do enough,” says Voronova. “How can they demand appreciation for Russian culture while Russians are destroying our culture?”