A historic event took place on 2019 year festival’s topic «Music and literature»!
We honoured the figure of Joseph Roth, one of the most important German-speaking authors of the XXth century, whose dramatic fate united Ukrainian, Austrian and Jewish histories and became the symbol of very strong relationships between Ukraine and Europe.
In 2019, we had an exceptional occasion to commemorate his double anniversary — 125 years of his birth and 80 years of his death — a really unique event. It’s the first time in the history of Ukraine and Austria when commemorative concert took place in writer’s Galician Motherland, near the ruins of Brody Synagogue. This building, while being one of the biggest Jewish temples of Eastern Europe, was half-ruined during bombing of the Second World War. As a living witness to tragic events, it became a real coulisse of unique artistic performance with modern staging, video installation and symbolic program, in which more than 200 artists and star soloists from the whole world were engaged. Our special duty is to remind our contemporaries — «never again»!
«Galicia, the big field of big war, is not rehabilitated yet», Joseph Roth wrote in 1924. He was born in the Jewish family in Brody and felt the changeability and bitterness of Jewish life in Europe of that time. His life was in merciless millstones of totalitarianism: after going to USSR Roth was disappointed and wrote anti-communism articles, where he declared: communists were atheists and gave Nazis the way to power. In 1933, when Nazis came to power in Germany, Roth’s texts became prohibited and writer was also persecuted.
Symphony No. 3 «Kaddish» by a prominent American composer, conductor and humanist Leonard Bernstein, son of Jewish emigrants who originated from place near Ukrainian city Rivne, is a culmination of performance. Symphony No. 3 by Leonard Bernstein was written using the canonical texts from ancient Jewish prayers. It is an artist’s reaction to Holocaust and dedicated to the memory of John Kennedy who tragically died several weeks before the premiere of this work. This composition became the world symbol of Jewish nation’s fate and frank epistle to the next generations — «Never again!».
The project was officially supported by Bundeskanzleramt Austria, Austrian Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, OeAD-Cooperation office Lviv and Ukrainian Institute in frames of Cultural year Austria-Ukraine 2019.
Soloists: Pumeza Matshikiza (Republic of South Africa)
Narrator: Sunnyi Melles (Switzerland)
The ˮDudarykˮ Lviv State Academic Male Choir (Ukraine)
“INSO-Lviv” Symphony Orchestra (Ukraine),
Conductor: Oksana Lyniv (Ukraine)
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