09.08.2023

On 14 and 15 August, the Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine will host the final concerts of the 20th anniversary Lviv Early Music Festival programme.

Over the past years, the festival has hosted an array of remarkable cultural events. It is unique in Ukraine, as it is the only national festival that presents early European music of various genres: vocal and instrumental, opera and oratorio, church and secular, at the highest professional level. The festival was founded by the prominent musicologist and composer Roman Stelmashchuk. After the sudden death of Roman in 2015, the music forum was headed by Liudmyla Kapustina, the director of the A Cappella Leopolis vocal ensemble, also founded by Stelmashchuk.
This year, the festival is again being held under the patronage of the Myroslav Skoryk Lviv National Philharmonic, under the umbrella of the project "Ukraine. Muses Are Not Silent" project, launched by the Philharmonic after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One of the festival's partners is the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine.

During the festival days, music connoisseurs can enjoy five original, well-designed programmes of Ukrainian and European Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque and early classicism. The performers are well-known Ukrainian and foreign artists with Marek Toporowski (Poland), Norbert Rodenkirchen (Germany), and Benjamin Bagby (France) among them.

On 14 August, the concert and exhibition hall of the Modern Art Research Institute of the NAA of Ukraine will host a concert "Musical Bridges". Performers Serhiy Havryliuk (baroque violin) and Anna Ivaniushenko (harpsichord) will present works by Maksym Berezovsky, Dmytro Bortnyansky, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jean-François Dandrier, Claude Balbatre and other composers. Anna Ivaniushenko is convinced: "Baroque music, due to its harmony and absolutely pure beauty, can heal souls." We hope that everyone who attends this exceptional musical event will feel it.
On August 15, music enthusiasts will enjoy the concert programme "Wanderer. Nomadic songs of the Middle Ages". Performers: the world-famous ensemble "Sequentia", an authoritative interpreter of medieval music repertoire of Benjamin Bagby (vocals, medieval harp) and Norbert Rodenkirchen (medieval flutes), as well as a special guest, Ukrainian multi-instrumentalist Vsevolod Sadovyi. They will perform ancient epic works that refer to the theme of voyages - both real, challenging and dangerous journeys along the roads of old Europe, and allegorical journeys of the soul towards redemption and self-discovery.
We invite guests who are interested in ancient music to visit the Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine (18d Yevhen Konovalets Street) on these August days. The performance starts at 6 pm. Admission to the concerts is free.