The Sound of Kyiv 100 Years Ago

Rediscovering Borys Liatoshynsky and Ukrainian Musical Modernism

The presentation of the newly published anthology on Borys Liatoshynsky brings together musicological research and live performance, offering new perspectives on one of the most influential Ukrainian composers of the twentieth century.

The event will feature a lecture by musicologist Dr. Iryna Tukova, co-editor of the anthology and one of the leading international experts on Borys Liatoshynsky's life and work.

Lecture
The Modernist Project of Ukrainian Art Music in the 1920s: The Case of Borys Liatoshynsky
This lecture examines the cultural, institutional, and artistic factors that facilitated the emergence of a modernist aesthetic in Liatoshynsky’s oeuvre. It explores the distinctive features of Ukrainian musical life in the 1920s, the role of the policy of Ukrainization in shaping a new artistic environment, the reception of European modernist trends, and the tensions that arose between artistic freedom and the increasingly pervasive ideological pressure of the Soviet regime. Through the case of Liatoshynsky, the lecture illuminates the broader process of the formation of Ukrainian musical modernism within its historical and cultural context.

Speaker
Iryna Tukova, PhD, Dr Habil., is an Associate Professor of Music Theory at the National Music Academy of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine) and co-founder of the Liatoshynsky Foundation. In 2024–25 she was the Petro Jacyk Non-Residential Scholar at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto (Canada). Previously, she was a Visiting Scholar at Indiana University Bloomington (USA).

Her research focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century Ukrainian art music, the works of Borys Liatoshynsky, and the intersection of music and the natural sciences. She is the author of more than fifty scholarly publications and several monographs, including Music and Natural Science: Interaction of Worlds in the Epochs' Mental Habits (17th–Early 21st Centuries) (2021). Her latest book, The Times of the Looking Glass: Boris Liatoshynsky's Choice, co-authored with Dr. Olena Korchova, was published in 2026. In 2024 she received the Ukrainian State Lysenko Prize for outstanding achievements in musicology.

Following the event, guests are warmly invited to a reception.

Programm

The lecture will be complemented by musical performances featuring works by Borys Liatoshynsky:

Borys Liatoshynsky: String Quartet No. 4 –Movement 1 and 5.
Opus Quartet: Matvii Vin-Kim Thach (Violin), Boryana Zheleva (Violin), Gabriel Cheng Han Tsai (Viola), Jasmin Pollatschek (Violoncello)

Borys Liatoshynsky: Preludes from the cycle Reflections
Anastasiia Skovliuk (Piano)