The festival “Contrasts” in the context of anniversaries
The 20th International Festival of Contemporary Music continues in Lviv
The “Contrasts” started on September 26 with a memorial evening celebrating great Ukrainian composer Vitalii Hubarenko’s 80th birth anniversary and professor of the Lviv Academy of Music Ihor Kushpler’s 65th birth anniversary. Program of the concert, held in the Liudkevych Concert Hall, included Hubarenko’s mono-opera Love Letters and Giancarlo Menotti’s chamber opera Telephone, featuring Kushpler’s students Anna Shumarina and Ruslan Skorolitnii as singers.
The second day of the festival saw Polish guests coming to Lviv: musicians of the Percussion and Pianos Ensemble, which included Bronislaw Kazimierz Przybylski, Alexander Arutiunian and Arno Babajanyan, Niels Rover, Jens Schlicker and Jerzy Bauer, offered rather eclectic music to the public. On September 28, the festival concert’s program combined classical and modern works. According to musicologist Lidia Melnyk, who is tasked with information support of the “Contrasts,” pianist Dina Yoffe performed the 1st Piano Concerto of Frederic Chopin in Lviv before, nearly four decades ago, and now she opened the evening with this piece. A string sextet by Richard Strauss was also a reminder of the anniversary, the composer’s 150th. The concert also featured the 6th Concerto Grosso by Alfred Schnittke, who would have turned 80 this year.
September 29 evening at the “Contrasts” was dedicated to another 80th birth anniversary, that of Giya Kancheli. However, Leopolitans greeted the composer in advance, as his birthday is on August 10. Still, Kancheli is a truly remarkable person, called also a folk composer, because the music of this Maestro of Silence is known to the wider audience (via films Mimino and Kin-Dza-Dza) as well as refined narrow circles of music lovers.
September 30 concert of the “Contrasts” celebrated yet another anniversary, the 200th birth anniversary of Taras Shevchenko. The program included music by Borys Liatoshynsky, Lev Revutsky and a galaxy of Ukrainian composers of the 1960s, all performed by the choir “Kyiv.”
The festival will last until October 12, including 20 events on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, which cover almost the whole range of the contemporary music – from classics of the 20th century to the latest experiments, from creative encounters with famous composers to lectures and discussions, from traditional concerts to theatrical productions.
