COPENHAGEN, Denmark — From a dank Kyiv bomb shelter to the intense stage lights of Europe’s theaters, a Ukrainian youth choir’s hymns in reward of freedom provide a sort of therapeutic balm to its war-scarred members.
The Shchedryk ensemble, described as Kyiv’s oldest skilled youngsters’s choir, have been within the Danish capital this week for a efficiency as a part of a global tour that additionally took them to New York’s famed Carnegie Corridor.
It was speculated to be a part of a busy yr to have a good time the choir’s fiftieth anniversary. However Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine modified all that, with members scattering inside their homeland and overseas seeking security. Some members say they’ve misplaced family and friends within the preventing.
“It is rather tough to collect the kids,” mentioned Marianna Sablina, the choir’s creative director and chief conductor, whose mom based the choir in 1971. A few of the members are “exterior the borders of Ukraine, and solely a couple of third of the discussion board at present lives in Kyiv.”
Earlier this yr, the choir managed to reassemble and started rehearsing in Kyiv’s Nationwide Palace of Arts.
The vagaries of struggle typically plagued the rehearsals. When Kyiv got here beneath bombardment and suffered energy outages, air raid sirens pressured the choir to assemble in a darkened bomb shelter, illuminating their sheet music with no matter mild supply they might discover.
PHOTOS: Ukrainian youth choir defies struggle with messages of freedom
“When there are sirens, we go to the shelter and simply sing with our telephones and flashlights,” mentioned 15-year-old choir member Anastasiia Rusina, whose household fled to western Ukraine following the invasion.
“I believe that we’re sort of getting used to it as a result of it’s our job to do. We now have a live performance, so we simply can’t skip any rehearsals,” she mentioned.
The viewers at Copenhagen’s Church of The Holy Ghost just lately listened to the hovering voices of the choir, made up largely teenage ladies carrying black and white clothes accentuated by purple and black squares on their sleeves and colourful beads round their necks.
“I sincerely hope that the live performance right here will ship a message of affection and hope and in addition sympathy and assist to all Ukrainian households,” mentioned Nataliya Popovych, co-founder of Copenhagen’s Ukraine Home, a civil society group which introduced the group to Denmark. “Hopefully subsequent yr, all Ukrainian households will be capable to have a good time Christmas correctly,” she added.
On the core of the efficiency was the music “Carol of the Bells,” maybe finest recognized from the 1990 Christmas film ‘Residence Alone’.
The carol was initially organized by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych within the early 1900s. The choir’s identify, “Shchedryk,” comes from the music’s Ukrainian title.
“We now have to ship to people who our tradition is so essential to our world,” Polina Holtseva, one other mentioned 15-year-old choir member, whose household has stayed in Kyiv all through the battle.
“It’s our tradition, it’s our songs, and it’s so wonderful that we have now an opportunity to provide you this music,” she mentioned.
Choir members Rusina and Holtseva mentioned they don’t have any concrete profession plans. They famous they don’t don’t even know what they’re going to do tomorrow. However amid the horrors of struggle, Shchedryk choir has turn out to be their “secure place.”
“We simply don’t take into consideration the struggle or our scenario. We simply sing, we’re along with our mates, our household,” Rusina mentioned.
