Opera Amandante in the list of the best projects of classical music for the year 2024
What is Amandante? An anti-opera, perhaps. Inspired by Plato’s Symposium, Shalygin wrote a wondrous, stylistically diverse work. The premiere took a while to get going, but then a masterful dramaturgy swept you along on a rollercoaster of emotions, in a triumph of musical imagination.
I'm delighted to invite you to the first events of a series of chamber concerts and contemporary electronic experimental music. The aim of organising this series is to introduce the Dutch public to the hidden gems of Ukrainian music from the second half of the 20th century and to enter into the artistic context of Ukraine at that time.
The Ukrainian tradition of classical music began in the 17th century. While rooted in orthodox chanting, it quickly synchronized with the European classical tradition. Ukrainian composers were subjects of empires, and they created a significant amount of music, but empires appropriated it. This heritage needs to be uncovered.
In the 20th century, some Ukrainian composers, known as the Kyiv Avant-Garde of 1960s, managed to create pieces that were in sync with contemporary Western composers despite a severe lack of information and censorship in Moscow-controlled USSR.
14 Nov, 20.15 – "V.Silvestrov", director Serhii Bukovskyi. Documentary film screening. Splendor, Amsterdam.
17 Nov, 20.15 – "Portrait of the composer", piano recital with pieces by V. Silvestrov. A. Baryshevskyi, piano. I. Sukhorukov, lecture-introduction. Splendor, Amsterdam.
1 Dec, 20.15 – "Kyiv Avant-Garde: Silvestrov, Zahortsev, Hodziatsky", piano recital.
Splendor, Amsterdam.
18 Dec, 20.15 – THE ADVENTURE OF THE AVANT-GARDE
Forbidden Music from Kyiv , piano recital. Piano Huis, Den Haag.
28 Dec, 20.15 – CAROL OF THE BELLS!, a concert featuring chamber music for piano, viola and clarinet. Splendor, Amsterdam. 1 Jan, 16:00 – "De kracht van muziek” , a concert featuring classical music for piano, viola (a string instrument) and clarinet, as well as traditional folk singing. Stevenskerk, Nijmegen.
Antonii Baryshevsky, the Ukrainian pianist, will perform the music.
Ihor Sukhorukov, a Ukrainian culture enthusiast, will help explore the music's context.
Designs by Natella Shavadze.
"Shalygin maakt van Plato’s Symposium een meesterlijke soort-van-opera over de liefde" – Review on premiere by Joep Stapel
AB: "I want to say thank you to the team we worked on in the opera Amandante by Maxim Shalygin for making music and theatre together!
It was a great journey - we made a first stop in the port of Amsterdam, and I hope our ship will flow further.
My love to the incredible singers of NOVA OPERA Ruslan Kirsh, Maryana Golovko, Anna Kirsh, Andrii Koshman
and instrumentalists Fiona Robertson, Ernst Spyckerelle,
Oksana Mukosii, Ketevan Roinishvili, Silvia Gallego, conductor Mikheil Menabde, and everyone involved in this project!"