1991 Project presents: Ukrainian Resonance
This event will be held in English and Ukrainian.
Please note that doors close 30 minutes after the start of the event, and that entry will be refused after this time.
Organized by the 1991 Project with the Columbia Global Paris Center and Institute for Ideas and Imagination. Livestream of a performance organized by the Kharkiv State Opera. We acknowledge the generous support of the EHA Foundation for making this concert possible.
The ballet Dragon Songs is an unconventional parable about people and dragons, set to music by Maxim Kolomiiets, the only Ukrainian composer ever commissioned to write a contemporary opera for the Metropolitan Opera.
This production will be performed from the bomb shelter stage of the Kharkiv State Opera, marking the first original performance created by the Kharkiv State Opera after the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The 1991 Project presents a livestream of the ballet at Reid Hall in Paris, in collaboration with the Columbia Global Paris Center and Institute for Ideas and Imagination. Following the broadcast, the audience at Reid Hall will enjoy a discussion of the work with composer Maxim Kolomiiets and the 1991 Project’s artistic director, musicologist and opera critic Anna Stavychenko.
This production brought together the talents of theater director Zhanna Chepela, who wrote the libretto, choreographer Antonina Radievskaya, and theater artist and fashion designer Konstantyn Ponomarev. According to the theater, the project came to life unexpectedly. Composer Maxim Kolomiiets initially published the music online, where Zhanna Chepela, director of the Kharkiv National Opera, discovered it and found herself captivated by its hypnotic melodies. The magic of Kolomiiets’s composition soon inspired the entire creative team.
Ukrainian Resonance: Chamber Music Concerts at Reid Hall
The 1991 Project presents a chamber music concert series featuring performances by Ukrainian musicians affected by war, as well as their renowned international colleagues, who are popularizing the Ukrainian repertoire. The series aims to promote Ukrainian music and highlight its deep connections to European cultural trends.
As the 2023-24 project-in-residence at the Reid Hall Displaced Artists Initiative, the 1991 Project has organized six concerts, as well as co-organized events in partnership with Eastern Circles, the Arts Arena, the Zadkine Museum, and the Centre international Nadia et Lili Boulanger. This followed their inaugural series, the Silvestrov Days in Paris in spring 2023, which celebrated one of Ukraine’s greatest contemporary composers.
This series is organized by the 1991 Project, the Columbia Global Paris Center, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.