The 2021 Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival is organized around a celebration of 30 years of Ukrainian Independence. By putting living composers from different eras—“Voices Across Generations”—into dialogue, we aim to showcase the continuity and creativity that has characterized Ukrainian composition for the last 80 years.

Voices of the New Millennium

Friday, March 5 at 7:00pm

Ukrainian Museum

All written since the year 2000, the music featured in our opening concert includes works from Ukraine’s youngest generation of composers as well as compositions by established Ukrainian composers Victoria Poleva and Oleh Bezborodko.

The Kyiv Avant-Garde

Saturday, March 6 at 7:30pm

Kaufman Music Center, Merkin Hall

This concert will showcase pivotable works of the Kyiv Avant-Garde, also known as the Sixtiers or shistdesyatnyky. Peter Schmelz will introduce the performance with a pre-concert talk about this exciting period of creativity.

Electroacoustic Voices

Sunday, March 7 at 2:30pm

DiMenna Center, Cary Hall

Ukraine’s foremost composer of electronic music, Alla Zahaykevych, will introduce a concert of electro-acoustic works by Ukrainian composers.