On August 20, the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society will host a special event featuring the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra conducted by Ukrainian-born Canadian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson and the owner of captivating voice, an American soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen. The guest concert Slava Ukraini! will be an impressive post-scriptum to the 29th Vilnius Festival.
Keri-Lynn Wilson, a conductor who has been seen on the stage of the National Philharmonic many times and is always eagerly awaited, will appear here for the first time with the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, which she founded and which has been touring the world’s stages for three years. Wilson formed the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in the spring of 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It involves musicians from Ukraine, war refugees, and Ukrainians living abroad. The list of the Orchestra’s tours and performances is growing longer and longer, including the world’s most famous stages, cathedrals, and festivals.
“On the day Putin invaded Ukraine, I was extremely angry and determined to do something to resist such barbarism. Not only because I have Ukrainian roots and close relatives living in Ukraine, one of whom has been fighting on the eastern front since 2014, but primarily because of the attack on the nation and its culture, which simply demanded a response. I cannot take up arms, but I can turn my baton into a weapon,” said Wilson.
Wilson, together with her husband, Peter Gelb, general director of the Metropolitan Opera, and Waldemar Dabrowski, director of the Polish National Opera, not only brought together musicians, but also prepared the touring infrastructure, seeking to ‘demonstrate the eternal power of music and the invincible cultural resilience of people.’
During the tours in the summers of 2022 and 2023, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra appeared in prestigious concert halls in Europe and the United States. The Orchestra performed works by Ukrainian composers Valentyn Silvestrov, Myroslav Skoryk, and Yevhen Stankovych, alongside compositions by Western classical music masters Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, and Verdi. The concerts were broadcast live on television and radio and attracted the attention of publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Times, Le Monde, Die Welt, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
In February 2024, marking the second anniversary of the war, the recording company Deutsche Grammophon released a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony performed by the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra. In May of the same year, the documentary film Beethoven’s Nine: An Ode to Humanity was released, premiering on ARTE TV. During the Beethoven’s Ninth Freedom Tour in 2024, the Orchestra shared its message of Ukrainian cultural freedom and identity with audiences from Paris to London and Warsaw. The tour culminated in concerts at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
“My greatest hope is that one day soon the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra will be able to perform in Ukraine for its own audience, and at that concert we will celebrate the victory of Ukraine and its brave people over the terrible disaster that the country has been forced to endure,” says conductor Wilson.
The Orchestra will share the stage of the Vilnius Festival with the world-renowned opera soloist Rachel Willis-Sørensen. One of the ‘most spectacular voices in the world of opera’, as Le Monde once described Willis-Sørensen, she has appeared at the Metropolitan, Covent Garden, Naples’ San Carlo, Bavarian, Berlin, Vienna and other opera houses. The soprano is renowned for the diversity of her repertoire ranging from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Richard Wagner, the latter of which the Vilnius Festival audience will have the opportunity to enjoy. The programme includes the Introduction from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Isolde’s death scene (Liebestod).
Another operatic work in the programme of the concert on 20 August is the Suite from the opera The Mothers of Kherson by Maxim Kolomiiets, one of the most prominent contemporary Ukrainian composers. This will be the premiere. According to the composer himself, the Suite was written at the request of conductor Wilson and will see the light of day before the opera itself.
The Suite is a vivid reflection of the tragic events recounted in the opera that the composer is writing. The Mothers of Kherson tells the story of the fate of three Kherson women. They rescue their children, who have been kidnapped by the Russians during the occupation of the town. The story is documentary, full of drama, hope and despair. “In the opera, I tried to recreate the propitious feelings and transfer them into a Suite that becomes a seamless musical narrative. I wrote the work with faith in people, love for my dearest and hope for the future,” says composer Kolomiiets.
The culmination and apogee of the festival will be Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (Fate) performed by the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra and its conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson. As music critic Michael Clive has written, Beethoven’s Symphony of Fate is a work-icon, which we all seem to know from birth, with “the most famous opening in the history of classical music”.
Vilnius Festival concert Slava Ukraini! Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Keri-Lynn Wilson, Rachel Willis-Sørensen will take place on Wednesday, 20 August at 19.00 in the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Concert Hall. For more information visit the website www.nationalphilharmonic.lt The festival is organised by the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society and PI Vilnius Festivals, with the support of Vilnius City Municipality, Juozas and Laima Magelinskas, and Artis Centrum Hotels.
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