Proof of registration, via a QR code on your phone or on paper, will be required to enter Reid Hall. Entry will be refused to those who are not registered. Please note that access will not be permitted 15 minutes after the start of the event.
This event will be held in English.
1991 Project presents Zahortsev Days in Paris. Co-organized by Columbia Global Paris Center, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and the Embassy of Ukraine in France.
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The Zahortsev Days in Paris continue the spirit of the 2023 Silvestrov Days, organized by the 1991 Project. Like Valentyn Silvestrov, Ukrainian composer Volodymyr Zahortsev was a student of Borys Lyatoshynsky—one of the 20th century’s great symphonists—and a key figure of the Kyiv avant-garde.
Volodymyr Zahortsev and Kyiv Avant-Garde
Ukrainian musicologist and cultural historian Alex Voytenko presents an in-depth exploration of the life and work of composer Volodymyr Zahortsev, a significant but underrecognized figure of the Kyiv avant-garde movement. Drawing on his extensive research and editorial work, including his 2021 publication In Memoriam, Voytenko will contextualize Zahortsev's artistic legacy within the broader framework of Ukraine’s experimental music scene of the late 20th century.
This session will not only highlight Zahortsev’s stylistic contributions but also examine the cultural and political conditions that shaped—and at times suppressed—the Kyiv avant-garde. Voytenko will present virtually in Paris from Kyiv, with in-person moderation by musicologist and curator Anna Stavychenko
Speakers
Alex Voytenko is a composer, musicologist, and lecturer at the Department of Musical Computer Technologies of the Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music. He is an author of chamber and symphonic music.
Primarily an autodidact, Voytenko graduated from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (1998–2002), National Music Academy of Ukraine (2002–2007, composition class of Professor Yuri Ishchenko). From 2007–2010, he was a Ph.D. student at the music theory department of the National Music Academy (supervisor—Professor Bogdan Syuta) and defended his thesis in 2012. He is a member of the National Composers Union of Ukraine.
His main scholarly interests are the ontology of music, history of music theory, theory of orchestration, theory of serial composition, history of the Kyiv avant-garde group, Volodymyr Zahortsev’s (1944–2010) oeuvre. In 2021, he published a book In Memoriam. Композитор Володимир Загорцев. Статті, листи, спогади. Матеріали до біографії [“In Memoriam. Composer Volodymyr Zahortsev. Articles, letters, memories. Materials for biography”]. In 2023, he published the monograph Theoretical Foundations of Twelve-Tone Serial Composition.
Anna Stavychenko
Anna Stavychenko is a classical music curator and producer, art director, and musicologist.
As an opera and art critic, Stavychenko has collaborated with the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the Opéra de Paris, the Salzburg Festival, the Bayreuth Festival, the Teatro alla Scala, and La Biennale di Venezia, among others. She has also written as a columnist for Vogue, Marie
Claire, L’Officiel, and other publications in Ukraine.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Stavychenko was the artistic director of the Open Music City Foundation. She also served as executive director of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, producing Ukraine’s first-ever performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in 2021 at the National Opera of Ukraine.
In May 2023, Stavychenko founded the 1991 Project, an initiative aimed at exploring unknown repertoire and supporting talents at risk. The 1991 Project is currently a local partner of Reid Hall, home to the Columbia University Global Paris Center and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination. The project’s primary focus is the rich Ukrainian musical repertoire from classicism to the present day.
Reid Hall, the Columbia Global Paris Center, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination are not responsible for the views and opinions expressed by their speakers and guests.
