On 18 July, the Ukrainian chamber ensemble Lyatoshynskyy Trio made its debut in the official opening program of the Salzburg Festival (Austria), Fest zur Festspieleröffnung (Celebration on the Occasion of the Festival Opening), Ukrinform reports.
Lyatoshynskyy Trio—whose members include violinist Mykhaylo Zakharov, cellist Susanna Shambelan, and pianist Artem Yasynskyy—gave two concerts with wide-ranging programs in the hall of the baroque museum complex DomQuartier.
According to the organisers, the program of the first performance was dedicated to the music of three composers from different countries: Borys Lyatoshynskyy (Ukraine), Arvo Pärt (Estonia), and György Kurtág (Hungary), who marked his 100th birthday this year and became one of the festival’s central figures.
The second concert featured works from the First Piano Trio by German composer and conductor Johannes Brahms, as well as the cycle of four tango pieces Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla.
“The performance of Borys Lyatoshynskyy’s Second Piano Trio on the Salzburg Festival stage was further evidence that Ukraine’s musical heritage is entering the European concert canon with growing confidence,” commented the ensemble’s manager, Yuliya Ostroverkhova.
Ostroverkhova also added that Lyatoshynskyy Trio’s debut in the festival’s official opening program was a landmark event not only for the ensemble, but also for the international presence of Ukrainian classical music.
Lyatoshynskyy Trio was founded by Mykhaylo Zakharov in 2019 and named after the Ukrainian composer and conductor—an exponent of modernism and expressionism in Ukrainian classical music—Borys Lyatoshynskyy (1894–1968). Since then, the trio has performed, among other venues, at the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna, the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and the National Philharmonic of Ukraine.
The Salzburg Festival is an annual summer festival of music and opera performances in Salzburg (Austria), held since 1920. The festival’s founders include writer and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal, composer Richard Strauss, and director Max Reinhardt.