Ukrainian Music Initiative premieres its second program!

CONSONANCE: Ukrainian Composers and the Western Canon

The performers of Ukrainian Music Initiative - contralto Vira Slywotzky, cellist Valeriya Sholokhova, pianist Pavlo Gintov and pianist Margarita Rovenskaya - celebrate two centuries of musical dialogue and cultural exchange between Ukrainian composers and their counterparts further west in an all new program featuring works by Theodore Akimenko, Oleg Bezborodko, Dmytro Bortniansky, Sergei Bortkiewicz, Vladimir Dyck, Bohuslav Martinu, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Stefania Turkewich.

Ukrainian Music Initiative is presented by Vira + Friends, a nonprofit corporation under the auspices of the Ukrainian American Educational Center of Boston, a 501(c)(3).

The Washington Group Cultural Fund presents UMI’s “Introductions” - works by Lysenko, Bortkiewicz, Silvestrov, Turkewich, Sonevytsky, Stepovy, Stetsenko, Didorenko, and Zaitzeva-Herz.

UCMF 2025’s closes with a presentation of instrumental works inspired by Ukrainian and American literature, both classical and contemporary.

Pavlo Gintov and Rita Rovenskaya perform the world premier of Alex Voytenko’s Homo Fugens (Running Man) inspired by Stephen King.

In the 19th century, the Contracts House on Kyiv’s Kontraktova Square was not only a trading space but contained a concert hall where many of the era’s musical and literary luminaries performed their works. From Kontraktova Square recreates this Kyiv salon with a selection of art songs, chamber works inspired by literature, and poetry readings.

Vira Slywotzky performs Three Romances on Poems by Lina Kostenko by Yuri Povolotsky with Pavlo Gintov and “Farewell” after John Keats by Valentyn Sylvestrov with Margarita Rovenskaya.

Our inaugural concert is centered around two of UMI’s guiding principles: the sounding of Ukrainian voices and the interpersonal connections that music can build.

The program will include songs by Ihor Sonevytsky, Yakiv Stepovy, Kryrylo Stestenko, and Stefania Turkewich, settings texts by Ivan Franko, Oleksandr Oles’, Lesia Ukrainka, Mykola Voron, and Vira Vovk.  The program will also include piano and cello pieces by Mykola Lysenko, Valentyn Silvestrov and Andrii Didorenko, four hand piano music by Theodore Akimenko and Olga Zaitseva-Herz's setting of Taras Shevchenko for voice, cello and piano.