A special memorial concert “Voices from Heaven”

“Voices from Heaven” is a special memorial concert dedicated to the innocent victims of the war in Ukraine — children, artists, women, and civilians whose voices our world can no longer hear. The concert invites on a symbolic journey from primordial purity through pain and mourning toward the hope of spiritual renewal.

The soloists of the evening — Ukrainian soprano Kseniya Bakhritdinova-Kravchuk and baritone Pavlo Hryshchenko — will perform together with the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra. The Concert of Remembrance will be conducted by Oksana Madarash, an Ukrainian conductor well known to Lithuanian audiences.

The evening opens with the Prelude to Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin — a breaking point in the composer’s career, a piece of music that seems to come from another world, filled with light and transparency, lifting the listener toward a sense of hope and spiritual purity.

This is followed by Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder — one of the composer’s most intimate and deeply moving works. Interestingly, the cycle was not inspired by Mahler’s personal experience of loss of children. It was based on the poetry of Friedrich Rückert who actually suffered such a loss. Yet Mahler, in his compassionate artistry, is able to convey a profoundly universal message about the fragility of life through solo voice.

The second part of the concert presents the Lithuanian premieres of three works by contemporary Ukrainian composers — Zoltan Almashi, Victoria Poleva, and Hanna Havrylets.

It opens with Zoltan Almashi’s Maria’s City, dedicated to the destroyed city of Mariupol. The music emerges from silence and wounded memory, reflecting a city that has become a symbol of tragedy and irreversible loss.

The central moment of the evening is the Lithuanian premiere of Victoria Poleva’s No Man Is an Island — a deeply humanistic musical meditation on interconnectedness, compassion, and shared responsibility. With striking clarity, the work reminds us that no loss is purely individual — it resonates through humanity as a whole.The chamber cantata is based on a text from the final sermon of the English poet and priest John Donne (1572-1631), whose words speak across centuries with undiminished urgency.

Hanna Havrylets’ Signa, will also be performed in Lithuania for the first time. This symphonic poem is built upon subtle impulses, tension-filled silences, and inner signals, evoking a profound sense of time, memory, and spiritual attentiveness.

The concert concludes with Myroslav Skoryk’s Melody — a deeply emotional piece that many Ukrainians regard as a spiritual anthem of Ukraine. Composed in 1982, it has become a symbol of national memory, mourning, and resilience, especially in times of trial, conveying both extraordinary tenderness and the strength of the human spirit.

“Voices from Heaven” is music that transforms memory into light. It is an evening in which pain and beauty, loss and hope intertwine, and in which voices no longer present among us continue to resonate.