Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra Will Be Performing At This Year’s Prom
At this year’s Prom, an orchestra of Ukrainian refugees will take up the center of the stage. Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Cynthia Erivo will also be at the concert. The orchestra is newly formed and has members who have recently fled the war. Along with them are some Ukrainian members who have been playing in a European orchestra lately.
The Ukrainian government is allowing military-age male musicians to leave the country and play. Conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson said that they will ‘honor those who have died’. The performing date of the orchestra is 31st July 2022. It will be two weeks after the Proms season launches.
The festival was celebrated on smaller-scale shows almost muted for the past two years since the pandemic hit. However, this year it will be celebrated if full form. It will be an eight-week celebration with 84 concerts, featuring over 3,000 musicians.
Now the COVID rules are respectively relaxed and restrictions lessened for choral performances. On the first night of Verdi Requiem, the Chineke Orchestra will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No 9, and Mahler’s Symphony No 2 will be performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.
The director of the Proms David Pickard said the ‘liberation’ of being able to plan a full season was ‘fantastic for us all’ in the music community after two ‘immensely challenging’ years.
He said that the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra was added to the program ‘at the 11th hour’. Yet he predicts that their performance will offer powerful and therapeutic moments to the audience.
He said, ‘I think sometimes you can feel rather powerless if you’re involved in the cultural world when a huge event like this war is going on, and this is a marvelous way to support the country and celebrate the power of music to cross divides.’
The orchestra was the pet project of conductor Wilson. He led the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. She said in her statement at the inaugural tour, ‘I wanted to bring the best orchestral musicians of Ukraine together, from both inside and outside of their country, in a proud display of artistic unity’.
Adding more, ‘I look forward to leading these gifted musicians across Europe and to the United States. This tour is an expression of love for their homeland and to honor those who have died and have suffered so much.’
They will be playing the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov’s Seventh Symphony, and Chopin’s Piano Concerto no. 2. Along with it, they will also play Ukrainian virtuoso Anna Fedorova; and the aria Abscheulicher from Beethoven’s Fidelio. Their performance will convey a plea for humanity and peace in the face of violence and brutality that this war has brought upon them.
The tickets for the Prom will be available from 21st May, Saturday. 96,000 seats will be available at a cost lesser than 20 pounds. A certain number of tickets can be bought on the day of each concert for just 6 pounds.
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