POLOVYI & POLOVA

National Ensemble of Soloists “Kyiv Camerata”
Keri-Lynn Wilson, conductor (Canada–Ukraine)
Children’s Choir “Shchedryk”
Artistic Director Marianna Sablina
Bohdana Pivnenko, Kyrylo Bondar, Myroslava Kotorovych — violin

POLOVYI & POLOVA is a special concert dedicated to the revival of the music of the now largely forgotten 20th-century Ukrainian composer Valerii Polovyi. On this evening, his music will once again be heard from the stage, restoring to audiences the name of an artist who, having endured the harsh trials of Stalinist repression, remained faithful to his creative calling.

The program brings together the work of two generations of Ukrainian artists: alongside compositions by Valerii Polovyi, it will feature music by his daughter, the outstanding contemporary composer Viktoriia Polova, whose musical language both continues a family tradition and opens a new dimension of modern Ukrainian aesthetics.

The concert will include Polovyi’s String Quartet No. 2 and Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra. Both works have a remarkable history: their ideas were conceived during exile. “My father wrote the Second Quartet in a labor camp around 1953–1954. He used cement bags as paper, smoothing them out and writing at night,” recalls the composer’s daughter, whose works form a distinct emotional layer of the program. Her Missa brevis for children’s choir and chamber orchestra was written in 1986, the year of her father’s death, and is dedicated to his memory. It is perceived as a musical prayer-requiem, where personal remembrance and spiritual reflection transform into a universal experience of grief and inner purification.

Another work by Viktoriia Polova — Blessed Sadness for two violins and strings — was created during the time of war. This performance carries a special symbolism, uniting the personal and the universal: a reflection on the past alongside an experience of the present.

The event takes place within the large-scale project Liberated Music, aimed at the decolonization of the Ukrainian musical space and the return to cultural circulation of names and works that were long erased from historical memory.

The concert is presented in partnership with Dom Master Klass and the National Philharmonic of Ukraine. Dom MK is not only a partner, but also the initiator of the project Polovyi & Polova.

Programme:

Part I
Valerii Polovyi — String Quartet No. 2
Valerii Polovyi — Concerto for Two Violins and Chamber Orchestra

Part II
Viktoriia Polova — Blessed Sadness for two violins and strings
Viktoriia Polova — Missa brevis, dedicated to her father

We look forward to welcoming you on April 9, 2026.
Start: 6:00 PM

Tickets available