With Russia beginning a new phase of its brutal assault on Ukraine, it seems impossible to escape a feeling of helplessness. It is for the Ukrainians and for those able to provide material support for their defense to respond to the moment, and hopefully, to prevail.
Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax posted this heart-felt rendition of the slow movement from the Brahms 3rd Violin Concerto in March, part of Yo-Yo Ma’s Songs of Comfort series. Ax was born in L’viv, Ukraine, into a Polish-Jewish family, and he offers words of encouragement and expresses the hope for peace.
In the 2015 documentary about Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, The Music of Strangers, Silkroad’s Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh recalls the agony of experiencing the war in Syria from afar and reflected on the role of music during a time of armed conflict, saying, “Can a piece of music stop a bullet? Can it feed somebody who is hungry? Of course, it doesn’t. You question the role of art altogether.”
Yet we keep hearing stories about music’s role in lifting the spirits of Ukrainians as they endure the horror of the Russian onslaught. Recently in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, organizers of the annual Kharkiv Music Fest improvised by moving an abbreviated version of the festival into a subway station, where they performed a “concert between explosions” for hundreds of their appreciative fellow citizens. Opening with the Ukrainian National Anthem, they played music by Bach and Dvorak, and arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs. The festival’s art director, Vitali Alekseenok, explained, “Music can unite…. It’s important now for those who stay in Kharkiv to be united.”
Concert between explosions – KharkivMusicFest-2022 in subway shelter (YouTube)
