Ukraine's Culture Minister Mykhailo Kulyniak and Polish Ambassador Henryk Litwin were among the illustrious guests at the first official concert of the I, CULTURE Orchestra's international tour at the Kiev National Opera
The I, CULTURE Orchestra is made up of musicians from Poland and countries in the EU Eastern Partnership Programme: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldavia and Ukraine and Kiev was the only capital outside the EU to host the Orchestra. The ICO is an initiative of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute which forms one of the most important projects of the Cultural Programme of the Polish Presidency 2011, seeking to highlight the importance of eastern and western influences on joint European cultural identity.
Natalia Dzieduszycka from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute remarked that
The Ukrainian concert had an exceptional atmosphere. The audience included many family members and friends of musicians playing in the Orchestra. They came not only from all over Ukraine, but also from Moldavia.
Before the concert, Mykhailo Kulyniak, Ukraine’s Minister of Culture, and Henryk Litwin, Poland’s Ambasador to the Ukraine, spoke, highlighting the cultural and political importance of such initiatives as the I, CULTURE Orchestra.
The evening’s programme included: Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite, Op. 20, Karol Szymanowski’s Symphony no. 4, Op. 60, and Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 5 in D minor, Op. 47. The crowd demanded encores and the Orchestra played the overture from Mikhail Glinka’s opera "Ruslan and Ludmila" as well as the second half of Dmitry Shostakovitch’s Symphony no. 5 in D-minor.
The CULTURE Orchestra continues it tour onto to Berlin, Brussels, London, Madrid this autumn, with a finale concert in Warsaw in mid-November.
See the full I, CULTURE Orchestra tour programme
I, CULTURE Orchestra is a project led by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and forms part of the Cultural Programme of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council 2011.
Date: 27th of October, 2011
Venue: National Opera, Kiev
Organised by: Adam Mickiewicz Institute
Project cofinanced by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
Source: Adam Mickiewicz Institute
For more information about the I, CULTURE Orchestra, see: orchestra.iam.pl.