In November, Graz will host the first DNIPRO Festival of Ukrainian Art. This new initiative presents Ukrainian literature, classical and traditional music, while also creating a space for Ukrainian and Austrian artists and audiences to meet, the organisers report.
The festival programme includes three events on 2, 6 and 13 November.
Part of the programme will also extend beyond the city: after the event in Graz, Ostap Slyvynskyy’s book Wörter im Krieg will also be presented in Vienna, Salzburg and St Pölten.
2 November: Ostap Slyvynskyy’s WÖRTER IM KRIEG
The festival will open with a book presentation and a performative reading of Ostap Slyvynskyy's Dictionary of War (“Wörter im Krieg”).
The book brings together short stories of people whose lives have been changed by war. The renowned Ukrainian poet and literary scholar has captured their experiences through words and personal testimonies, creating a portrait of a society living through war. The German translation by Austrian translator Maria Weissenböck was published in 2023. The book has already been translated into more than 14 languages.
In Graz, Wörter im Krieg will be presented for the first time in Austria together with the author Ostap Slyvynskyy, translator Maria Weissenböck, musician and composer Nick Acorn, actress Ninya Reichert, and literary scholar Mariya Donska.
Further presentations will take place on 4 November in Vienna (organiser: the Institute for Human Sciences, IWM), on 5 November in Salzburg (organiser: the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Salzburg), and on 7 November in St Pölten (organisers: the Bildungshaus St. Hippolyt education centre and the Ukrainian Cultural Society “RAZOM” in Krems).
6 November: “UKRAINISCHE KLÄNGE. BAROCK”
The festival’s second evening continues the story of the “Ukrainische Klänge” (“Ukrainian Sounds”) project, which for the sixth time will bring Ukrainian musical culture to audiences in Graz.
In 2026, the programme turns to Baroque music. Alongside masterpieces by Arcangelo Corelli, George Frideric Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, works by Ukrainian composers Maksym Berezovskyi and Dmytro Bortnianskyi will be performed. The programme highlights both the richness of Ukraine’s musical heritage and its place in the broader history of European music.
The concert is being prepared in collaboration with the Institute of Early Music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (Kunstuniversität Graz). Its director, Professor Susanne Scholz, will put together a special programme with her students, including Olesia Romaniv (violin) and Anna Kilchytska (harpsichord).
The Lviv-based ensemble Terra Barocca, under the artistic direction of harpsichordist Anna Ivaniushenko, will also perform at the festival. Soprano Tetiana Miius will return to “Ukrainische Klänge” for the fifth time.
The concert will take place in the splendid Baroque palace Meerscheinschlössl, an especially fitting setting for this musical journey.
13 November: “URSPRÜNGE” – an interactive vocal journey with FAJNA Folklore Labore
The festival’s final event will be a performance by the group FAJNA Folklore Labore.
Four Ukrainian singers—Kseniia Erosh, Mariia Mitych, Olesia Romaniv and Anastasiia Stakhanska—will invite the audience on an interactive musical journey through the traditional Ukrainian annual cycle.
The concert will feature ritual songs closely tied to seasonal celebrations, customs and traditions that have accompanied generations of Ukrainians for centuries. Moving from spring to winter, the programme invites listeners to discover not only the distinctive sound of Ukrainian traditional singing, but also the cultural practices and contexts that have kept this music alive.