“European Festival: Ukrainian Spring” in Stockholm

The first “European Festival: Ukrainian Spring” took place in 2023

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It will be held in Sweden for the second time “European festival: Ukrainian Spring“. It will last from April 24 to May 7, 2024 and will combine 12 cultural events.

The slogan of the festival is “Reflections in each other’s eyes – Ukraine in Europe and Europe in Ukraine“. He embodies the concept of the event – to present Ukraine as an integral part of the European cultural heritage.

The events of the festival will take place in 10 different venues in Stockholm: concert stages, museums, residences of cultural representatives, in a cinema and even a church.

The organizers want to remind once again about the need to increase aid to Ukraine to protect it from the aggressor Russia. Therefore, this year each of the 12 days of the festival will be dedicated to one of the Ukrainian artists who became defenders and died at the front.

“This is a painful reminder to the whole world that Russia is taking the best from Ukraine. Some of them managed to make an outstanding career before the war, and some were only at the beginning of their journey, which was cut short by Russian aggression“, said the pianist, founder and director of the Ukrainian Institute in Sweden Natalia Pasichnyk.

The opening of the festival will take place on April 24 at the main concert stage of Sweden – the Royal Concert Hall. The first day will be dedicated to the opera singer Vasyl Slipak, who died in the war with Russia in 2016. This evening Natalia Pasichnyk will present her reinterpretation of Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” together with the vocal quintet Calmus Ensemble (Leipzig).

On April 29, the festival will be dedicated to the memory of the ballet soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine Oleksandr Shapoval. On this day, the prima of the Paris Opera, ballerina and choreographer Clermarie Usta will perform. She created a composition especially for the festival, for which she was inspired by the work of Lesya Ukrainka.

On May 2, the day of the screening of the Swiss-Ukrainian film “Olga”, the actor will be remembered Paul Leewho died near Irpen at the beginning of the Russian invasion.

The final of the European Festival “Ukrainian Spring” will take place on May 7. On this day, the Latvian violinist and conductor Gidon Kremer will perform on the stage of the Royal Concert Hall together with his orchestra “Kremerata Baltika”.

They will present the program “Songs of Fates and Hopes”, which includes works by Arvo Pärt, Valentin Sylvestrov and Astor Piazzolla and other composers. At the end of the concert, the world premiere of the work of Ukrainian composer Bohdana Frolyak, inspired by Taras Shevchenko’s poem “Zore moya vechrinnyaya”, will be performed.

The last day of the festival will be dedicated to the memory of the conductor of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra and Kyiv Opera Konstantin Starovytskyiwho died in the Kramatorsk direction.

The full festival program can be found on the festival website.