Sounds of Stravinsky’s in Volyn

This music festival is being held for the 12th time. Igor Stravinsky, who had composed a lot of world-famous opuses in a small town of Ustyluh, called it “heavenly nook.” Stravinsky’s former manor now hosts the world’s only museum of the composer. Incidentally, this establishment can be visited online at Den’s website incognita.day.kiev.ua.

Traditionally, the forum “Stravinsky and Ukraine” begins and ends in Lutsk, but performances also take place in Ustyluh. Ihor Palytsia’s New Lutsk Foundation has been supporting the festival financially in the past few years. According to Iryna Konstankevych, deputy chairperson of the foundation’s board, this charity supports Volyn’s only festival of classical music because information about the composer must be spread among young people. “Contrary to social circumstances, a festival like this should go on,” she says. “As an institution that supports everything of a high quality, progressive and highly professional, the foundation must take part in this project. The name of Igor Stravinsky makes Volyn residents involved in a worldwide context, and it would be a major crime for the contemporaries not to make use of this factor. The figure of the composer, as well as that of Lesia Ukrainka, is rooted in Volyn, so it is worthwile to assert Igor Stravinsky’s name in the musical context and popularize it among schoolchildren and youth so that they know his role in the world music.” The fest began with the performance of the ensemble Kyiv Soloists.