In another gesture of solidarity with the victims of the war in Ukraine, the Metropolitan Opera and the Polish National Opera will gather leading Ukrainian musicians into the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra for a European and American tour July 28–August 20, including stops in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, before culminating with concerts in New York and Washington, DC. Under the leadership of Canadian-Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, the orchestra will perform a program that includes Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov’s Seventh Symphony and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with Ukrainian virtuoso Anna Fedorova. Leading Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska, who sang the title role of Turandot at the Met in the spring, will perform the great aria “Abscheulicher!” from Beethoven’s Fidelio, a paean to humanity and peace in the face of violence and cruelty.

Drudkh is a black metal legend. True to the values of this extreme genre, the enigmatic Ukrainians refuse to follow the rock 'n 'roll rulebook and provide no answers, no statements, no shows – all that matters to them is their music. Drudkh's latest albums and split-singles have drawn heavily on 20th century Ukrainian poetry for lyrical inspiration and 'They Often See Dreams About the Spring' continues this trend. Poetic gems from Bohdan Ihor Antonych, Maik Yohansen, Vasyl' Bobyns'kyi and Pavlo Philipovych have been unearthed by the band and brought back to life on this album. 'They Often See Dreams About the Spring' delivers black metal poetry at its best.

Valentin Silvestrov composed Requiem for Larissa between 1997 and 1999 as a memorial to his wife, musicologist Larissa Bondarenko, who died in 1996. It is a big and unceasingly somber work, scored for chorus and orchestra. Understandably, this Requiem is to a degree reflective, incorporating musical themes drawn from older works that had special meaning to the couple. While Silvestrov's typically glacial tempos are in evidence here, some of the opening half of the piece has an angular spikiness that recalls serial techniques without actively engaging in them. Instrumentally, Requiem for Larissa is dark, atmospheric, and even a little cinematic; the choral parts are sparse and minimally applied. In the fourth-movement Largo, the voices take over and settle down into an ethereal texture that leavens the gloom somewhat, but by this time 25-and-a-half minutes have gone by and some listeners will have already tuned out owing to the toughness of the opening section.Requiem for Larissa is an intensely personal piece performed with respect and care by the Ukrainian National Chorus and Symphony Orchestra under conductor Vladimir Sirenko.

Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov (b.1937) is an important contemporary voice in vocal music. In this new release, Silvestrov’s hauntingly beautiful vocal works are performed by the Latvian Radio Choir under their director Sigvards Kļava. During his artistic career, Silvestrov has explored a number of musical styles and techniques, such as avant-guard, post-modernism, neo-classicism, dodecaphony, aleatoric writing and pointillism. The fall of the Soviet Union, however, allowed Silvestrov to eventually compose spiritual works, inspired and influenced by his love of the Russian Orthodox Church music which Silvestrov imbues with his own unique sound and bursts of surprising harmonic moves. Silvestrov’s compositions are invested with the composer’s own unique personality, musical sensibility and sense of beauty.

“The Realms of Fire and Death” is a concept album with a strong story-telling, metaphors and symbols. It is divided into three major parts, each consisting of 3 songs. Each part outlines a separate story, bringing the themes of fire and death from different perspectives. Musically, “The Realms of Fire and Death” is a modern-sounding metal album, featuring the dynamics of shifting from lighter to more brutal parts, and yet, preserving the melodic side of it. While earlier the band was working towards a symphonic direction, the melodic side in the new album is executed through various synths and electronic sounds.

Звучит (Sounds) is the 2016 album by Ukranian singer Monatik, born Дмитро Сергійович Монатик. This is taken from the original self-released CD, which means it was made specifically for the fans but a later pressing would be released properly.

Following on from their critically acclaimed long-running instrumental collaboration Burnt Belief, Colin Edwin and Jon Durant have joined forces once again, this time with pre-eminent Ukrainian vocalist Inna Kovtun. The trio have drawn on their past influences and experiences to blend seemingly unrelated musical environments, including traditional Ukrainian and Slavic folk elements, modern electronica, Progressive Rock, and a range of deep atmospherics and dreamy ambient textures. The resulting album shares occupies an ethereal territory akin to the likes of Dead Can Dance or even The Cocteau Twins, and to Western ears, the unfamiliar vocalisations provide a compelling thread throughout.

Китиці (Kytytsi) is the 1999 album by Ukranian vocalist Світлана Няньо (Svitlana Nianio). This was released by Koka.

Legendary band The Wedding Present release their ‘The Complete The Ukrainians BBC – John Peel Sessions’. The release include all three John Peel sessions re-mastered for the first time along with booklet + new sleeve artwork designed by original artist Jonathan Hitchen. With regular singer David Gedge relegated to guitar and backing vocals, Liggins takes centre-stage on vocal duties. His sonorous Ukrainian vocals on ‘Cherez Richku, Cherez Hai’ combined with Solowka’s edgy guitar make for an exciting mix of Ukrainian and Western musical styles, and is something of a reference point for a genre of music which now exists in Ukrainian communities around the World. The band still write and record their own style of Ukrainian music today, releasing eight studio albums and have toured all over Europe and in North America. The Wedding Present continued with David Gedge at the helm and they have gone on to become one of the UK’s most longstanding and much-loved indie bands, with eighteen British top fourty hit singles to their name. Not bad for a group that has, from its inception, stubbornly refused to play the record industry’s game. The band released their ninth studio album, ‘Going, Going…’, to critical acclaim in 2016.

Dakh Daughters is a Ukrainian music and theater project started in 2012 in Kyiv. The band consists of seven women, who play on various instruments and sing in different languages and dialects. They often use texts by famous authors in their lyrics (e.g. Taras Shevchenko, William Shakespeare, Iosip Brodsky, Charles Bukowski). Dakh Daughters participants are members of different projects such as DakhaBrakha and Perkalaba. The band's name derives from the Dakh theater which is associated with the project.

'Few Lines in Archaic Ukrainian' collects the cold majesty of DRUDKH's 2015-2017 split album output into a single compendium. The set includes their tracks, six in total, from splits with HADES ALMIGHTY, GRIFT, and PAYSAGE D'HIVER and represents the first time many appear on a format outside of vinyl. 'Few Lines in Archaic Ukrainian' is yet another noteworthy marker in the journey of one of black metal's most crucial champions.

Ukranian band Obiymy Doschu was formed in 2004, with Kiev as their base of operations. Their first full-length production, "Elehia," was initially issued in 2009, and one year later the two-track single "Svitanok" appeared. In late spring of 2011 the band signed to the Russian label MALS Records, which reissued their initial album for an international audience, with the title track from the 2010 single added as a bonus feature. If you can imagine dark, melancholic music that utilizes details from classical and folk music to flavor a blend of acoustic rock and doom metal within a framework set inside the art rock universe, then you're pretty close to what Obiymy Doschu is all about.

«The story behind MOZAЇKA is about remarkable coincidences of circumstances and symbols. Somehow all these pieces have come together in this release»

With the new album ‘Їм часто сниться капіж’ (‘They Often See Dreams About the Spring’), DRUDKH’s traditional black metal sweeps in like a cold wind from the East. Timeless frozen melodies adorn an uncompromising attack, creating yet another epic work from one of the genre’s most important bands.

Jazz trifft auf Elektronik trifft auf Folklore – das Frankfurter Contrast Trio hat ein intensives, tanzbares, und melancholisches Werk geschaffen. Auf „Letila Zozulya" (ausgesprochen „Sosulja") findet sich zum ersten Mal auch Gesang. Für sein drittes Album reiste das Piano-Trio nach Kiew, um dort mit einem ukrainischem Chor aufzunehmen. Die Band, die als jüngster Preisträger in der Geschichte 2016 den Hessischen Jazzpreis bekam, hat in zehn Tagen Eigenproduktion ein Album kreiert, das trotz unterschiedlichster Einflüsse ein homogenes, perfekt durchhörbares Werk geworden ist.