About The Festival:
New York, NY: From February 28 — March 1, 2020, the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival will explore the role of music in contemporary Ukrainian culture and politics through lively conversation and performance. Hosted at the Graduate Center, Hunter College, and the Ukrainian Museum, the Festival will provide space to both hear today’s most exciting Ukrainian new music and to contextualize its place within a broader scope of history and society. Each event held during the festival will pair thought-provoking discussions led by distinguished scholars of Ukrainian history and culture with a performance of works by Ukraine’s leading living composers, surveying topics such as revolution and political upheaval, music education in Ukraine, and modern Ukrainian history.
Saturday, February 29th, 2020 at Hunter College:
Ukraine’s musical history has been intimately tied to moments of political revolution. Our Saturday events feature works of revolutionary composers and their musical responses to oppression and liberation.
The program will open with three academic talks on various composers and their musical interactions with political change. Dr. Inessa Bazayev (Lousiana State University) will discuss the unique compositional approaches of one of Ukraine’s early Soviet avant-garde composers and the ways in which his music reflected his responses to the developments of Communism. Dr. Peter Schmelz (Arizona State University, current Guggenheim fellow) will discuss one of Ukraine’s most important living composers, Valentyn Sylvestrov, providing an overview of his career and comparing his works from the 1960s to more recent compositions. Dr. Leah Batstone (Hunter College, CUNY) will explore the changing landscape of music in Ukraine following the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. These talks will be complemented by a concert of works from Roslavets, Sylvestrov, and those responding to the events on Maidan.
A post-concert reception, featuring the music of Ukrainian jazz pianist Fima Chupakhin, will be held at the Ukrainian Institute of America. Join Faculty members; Julia Biber, Quynh Nguyen, Claudia Knafo, and Leah Batstone, for amazing performances throughout the festival. For more information: https://www.ucmfnyc.com/
