Albert Saprykin is a composer and co-founder of Kyiv Contemporary Music Days (KCMD). Over the past decade, his name has become associated with the development of the new music scene in Ukraine, starting with the first festival in Ukraine in 2015, and progressing to international projects following 2022. Since the start of the full-scale war, KCMD has become not only a music platform, but also a tool for supporting musicians and promoting cultural diplomacy.
In this conversation, we talked about the founding of KCMD, changes to its scale of work in Kyiv and its presence in Berlin, and Albert Saprykin himself, the composer behind this story.
The beginning of KCMD
I was studying simultaneously in Kyiv as a composer and in Graz, Austria, as a pianist. I spent more time in Kyiv, but it was in Graz that I became friends with three musicians with whom I lived in the same house: guitarist Francisco Morais Franco from Portugal, violinist Junya Makino from Japan, and clarinetist Darko Horvatic from Croatia. We spent a lot of time together, played music together, and this grew into a strong friendship that has lasted for years.
In the spring of 2015, after everyone had already left Graz (I returned to Kyiv, Francisco went back to Portugal, Junya moved to Germany, and Darko remained in Graz), we decided to meet somewhere in Europe. I invited everyone to Kyiv in December 2015. Since we were getting together, I came up with an idea for us to give a concert.
Our lineup was quite unusual: clarinet, guitar, violin, and piano. It’s almost impossible to find a repertoire for such an ensemble.We therefore decided to issue an open call, initially only for Ukrainian composers, to submit their works or write a piecespecifically for us to perform. I remember writing to my friend, composer Borys Loginov, that I had “Napoleonic plans” to organize a concert in Kyiv.
We started receiving compositions, not only from Ukrainian composers, but also from Germany, Austria, Spain, Poland, and Portugal. I thought it would be good to invite some of the foreign composers to Kyiv. I wrote six identical letters and thanked those composers for their compositions, informing them that we would perform their works. I added that if they wanted to come to Ukraine, we would be happy to receive them, that we didn’t have money for travel expenses or fees, would figure out accommodation on the spot and even organize a lecture or something else for them. All six foreign composers agreed to come to Kyiv.
At some point, I realized that this was more than just one concert. I approached Taras Demko and Ivan Ostapovych from Lviv with a proposal to hold events there as well. Gradually, the idea expanded, and nine months later, it was already a ten-day festival at ten venues in Kyiv and Lviv. That is how the first Kyiv Contemporary Music Days festival came about.
Why was it possible at that time?
In 2015, a little over a year had passed since the Revolution of Dignity. During the Revolution, I studied at the conservatory, and Maidan was literally next door. I was there, both as a witness and a participant, together with my friends.
An initiation took place for me on Independence Square during the Revolution of Dignity. Before that, my identity was more about Kyiv. At Maidan, for the first time, I clearly felt that I was Ukrainian and realized what that meant to me. It was about being a citizen, and about the fact that the future of our country was in our hands, the same hands that we make coffee with inthe morning. At Maidan, I saw how building a community works: one day you might fill bags with snow; someone would then ask for a barricade to be moved; you discuss it, argue, and, in the end, dismantle and move the barricade 25 meters forward, the one that you spent an hour and a half building. I witnessed a sniper shooting at a man next to me. He missed. I also saw death. You don’t come out unchanged from an experience like that.
I realized, when finishing my master’s degree in 2014, that, despite all the benefits of studying at the conservatory, I didn’t have a clear understanding of my opportunities as a composer. I didn’t understand how I could connect my life with music. At that time, the Nostri Temporis and Sed Contra ensembles were actively working in Kyiv; the Kyiv Music Fest was taking place; the Ucho platform and EM-visia, initiated by Alla Zagaykevych, were operating. At the same time, I didn’t see a place for me to connect musically in Ukraine.
Perhaps this need gave me an idea for the festival, to create an environment that I lacked at the time.
Gradually, others joined the planning of the festival. Vitaliy Kyyanytsa was organizing a concert with the Sed Contra ensemble at the same time and suggested joining our forces, so as not to split the audience. Antony Baryshevsky agreed to give a solo concert with sonatas by Galina Ustvolskaya, and we filled the small hall of the conservatory to capacity, so much so that we had to put extra chairs even on the stage. Renata Sokachyk and Borys Loginov helped me every step of the way from the day the idea was born. Kateryna Alymova met me for coffee, offered her help, and remains part of our team today. I invited musicians to give lectures and hold informal meetings with the audiences, in addition to concerts.
From the very beginning, the festival combined concert, community-building, and educational components. We took efforts to ensure that it was as open to the community as possible. I was building these things into the first KCMD festival in Ukraine, everything that I lacked so much at the time.
I also approached Mikheil Menabde with a proposal to organize a concert with his orchestra, Armonia Ludus. The opening concert took place at the Mystetskyi Arsenal. We expected 300 people, around 450 showed up, and the volunteers and I had to find additional benches and chairs to accommodate everyone.
Then, just like now, I felt the need to make musicians from other countries fall in love with Ukraine. Over the years, KCMD grew naturally on its own into our cultural diplomacy platform, becoming no longer just a festival, but an organization.
About the difficulties at the start
There weren’t any difficulties at the beginning. They appeared later. During the preparation for the first festival, it felt like I had caught a wave and was riding it. I was irrationally convinced that something like KCMD had to emerge one way or another, and all you could do was either join the process or not. I decided to join.
Sure, there was stress. We got confirmation of the location for the opening concert at the Mystetskyi Arsenal only ten days before the kick-off of the festival. I was sure about the Arsenal from the very beginning and didn’t look for alternatives. Also, we didn’t know where to get the money to rent it. In the end, my friends Francisco, and Junya, and I just chipped in. There was a lot of organizational work due to the number of people involved in the event. The team, musicians, guests from different countries, logistics, all of it was exhausting. There was anotherthing I realized at the time, that it’s difficult to be a performer when you’re also managing a festival. Mixing the roles of pianist and organizer is something I don’t want to experience again.
Memorable projects
The KCMD organized eight different projects, including festivals, lecture series, and master classes. There were also video productions, concerts, and festivals abroad. Since the start of the full-scale war, there have been projects related to supporting musicians and the music scene in Ukraine.
It is difficult for me to single out one thing when talking about the essence of a project. The first festival was very important in terms of the emotional aspect. Also, at that time, I realized some things about myself.
The lectures we did with Mykola Kovalinas in 2017 were important to me. They were a series of talks about music at the Goethe-Institut, then at 12 Voloska Street in Kyiv. Sometimes 150–200 listeners would show up, and many of them were not musicians. Mykola Kovalinas talked about Webern, Beethoven, Lutosławski, Chopin, “squirrels and hares,” “erogenous zones of music” (from Greek eros genos — that what generates love, making you fall in love with music) and many other things. It felt like listening to a preacher rather than a lecturer. We left those lectures feeling a little different, seeing the excitement in each other’s eyes.
Everything we did in Kyiv was primarily about moments when a sense of community arose. That is precisely why, for example, I began to reflect more on what a concert is and why it is important. This was especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when it became clear that one couldn’t just listen to music on YouTube or Spotify, sometimes performed better than in live concerts.
I concluded that a concert is not so much about content as it is about a feeling of unity, and that music happens here and now.
It is performed by real people who breathe the same air and are in the same space with other listeners. For music performed on stage, it’s not just the stage that matters, but also the people in the audience. They are not just the audience, but important participants in the event, as they affect how music sounds.
As a musician, you understand that you play differently depending on the audience. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a difference. It’s like the difference between recording a voice message for yourself or for someone you care about. Technically, it’s the same action, but the meaning and energy are different. You may even come to different conclusions when speaking into the microphone, depending on the message’s intended recipient.
Live music on stage is different from music recorded in a studio. In live music concerts, you feel a sense of belonging when, for a few hours, you become part of something bigger than yourself.
My strongest memories of this sense of community are from Kyiv, for example, at Kovalinas’ lectures, at festivals, at master classes with participants who had flown into Kyiv from Germany, Australia, China, Japan, or Italy, or had come from Chernivtsi or Vidradnyi.
The last concerts before the full-scale invasion took place in December 2021, a series of three concerts at Naked Room called The Study of White with Nazariy Stets, Orest Smovzh, Ihor Zavhorodnii, and Andriy Pavlov as performers.
From December 31 to January 1, we held a New Year’s music party there, and the musicians performed Variations of John Cage. It is a small room with a special ambiance, and it was completely full during our concerts. At that time, Misha Chedryk was the main coordinator of our project.
At the first concert, there seemed to be one row of empty seats left, even though all the tickets had been sold out. I decided to “cheat” a little and added about thirty more tickets to the system. We sold them cheaply, everyone came, and there weren’t enough seats. I confessed my “cheating” to Misha, and he got very upset with me. We agreed that I would not do this again. I can’t claim to always keep my word, but I try.
The feeling you get when you see people in front of you with eyes full of interest and, after a concert, you hear, “It’s a strange and different world, but it was so interesting,” is very important to me. I then ask myself, “Maybe new music isn’t in a niche?”
Perhaps this is where our slogan came from: that KCMD is first and foremost about people, and only then about music.
About expectations and outcomes
I never thought about our projects in terms of “will it work or not.” Now, as I say this, I realize that I always had a sense of where we were going and what we needed to do to get there.
I’m not bragging, and there were a lot of mistakes made along the way. However, if I didn’t believe in something myself, I simply wouldn’t involve myself or others with whom we workedside by side. I wouldn’t waste their time or mine. If I don’t really believe in an idea, I don’t pursue it.
One thing I did not expect, was the scale of one concert at the Mystetskyi Arsenal in 2016. At the time, we were staging the Ukrainian premiere of The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by György Ligeti. About 650 tickets were sold for this concert, almost twice as many as for the previous one. This is a figure I like to talk about because it is very specific, not about feelings, but a fact.
I would like to mention the Per Forma grant program, which we launched in 2024 and partially continued in 2025. We plan to launch it again in 2026. This is a program to support artists in the field of performing arts across very different fields, not only music and/or new music, but also in theater, circus, poetry, puppetry, etc.
As a result, 85 projects took place across Ukraine. I did not expect this scale. When you sit in front of a computer and deal with the organizational part, you don’t always see the real result. At some point, you start wondering what it’s all for. However, I was impressed when we collected reports, photos, videos, and feedback from participants. The performing arts scene in Ukraine is so rich. So many people are doing powerful, high-quality work in large cities and in towns close to the front line. If you multiply 85 projects by at least an average of ten participants in each, that’s almost a thousand people across the country, and those are just the ones who were covered by the program’s budget. In a country that is literally bleeding, these people continue to work; they don’t give up and create meaningful things. That’s something I can’t get out of my head.
The Per Forma grant program was made possible thanks to our collaboration with the Performing Arts Fund NL. This is important for me to mention. Instead of just quickly launching a formal grant schema for the sake of it, they spent several months consulting with representatives of the Ukrainian community, both state institutions and independent performers, including us. Performing Arts Fund NL representatives asked what was needed and who would benefit. KCMD argued that the grantshould support projects in Ukraine, because that is where it makes sense. As a result, the Performing Arts Fund NL decided to work with us. KCMD developed and implemented this program.
If it weren’t for specific people in specific positions at the Performing Arts Fund NL, who cared and wanted these funds to truly benefit Ukrainian artists, this would not have happened. I rarely see such involvement among representatives of bureaucratic structures. Such an involvement is very valuable to me.
About mistakes and experiences
There were many screw-ups in my work, and I continue to screw up.
We had no experience in organizational work when we started, which was both a weakness and a strength. Had I fully understood what was involved at the time, I don’t know if I would have taken it on. I wouldn’t have involved other people in a project that required dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of hours of their lives. I didn’t know that and perhaps that’s why I naively took it on.
There were many mistakes in everything related to event organization. We learned as we went along, and each subsequent project turned out a little better.
Over time, I realized that you need to surround yourself with people who do their job better than you.
I also realized that you need to gradually step back from some of the tasks so that you can do what should really be your job. There are things that only you can do, even if they are not urgent, for example, development and where we are headed as an organization. If you don’t do this, at some point, the fuel that keeps everything going will simply run out.
About presence and balance
In the early years, it was important to me that KCMD wasn’t perceived as Albert Saprykin’s personal project. I didn’t want it to look like I was organizing a festival where my own music was played, and my compositions weren’t performed at KCMD for a long time. This partly had to do with this sense of propriety, as it seemed right to me to maintain a certain distance.
It was much more important for the KCMD story to move forward on its own, as a shared space, so that those who participated would feel like co-creators, and not participants in someone else’s project.
At the same time, KCMD concerts sometimes featured music that wasn’t especially liked by the organizers themselves. For example, I have great respect for Stockhausen, but his music is not close to my heart. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be played at KCMD. The audience should have the opportunity to hear different kinds of music.
We have gradually developed two approaches: a curatorial one when we form the program ourselves, and another when musicians propose their program, and we handle everything else. In the latter case, it is important to avoid the desire to interfere in every detail, to give artists the space to express themselves as they see fit. I guess it all comes down to finding a balance, where to be involved and where to step back. It’s interesting to observe what happens when you are 20 percent involved and what changes when you are 80 percent involved.
This balance also applies outside of creative decisions. Over time, the administrative part of the work became the most tedious for me. It started when we began applying for grants in our third year of existence. I am a musician, but I had to deal with contracts, estimates, and reports.
I learned to work with this, but I can’t say that it stopped being exhausting. If you look at administrative work more casually, like daily tooth brushing, it simply becomes part of life. There are countries where every citizen files their own tax returns every year, and they manage just fine, even artists.
After February 24, 2022
During team calls in January 2022, we asked ourselves what would happen to KCMD if the Russian invasion started. What would we do? We didn’t get into specifics, but there was a sense of impending danger.
I remember February 24, 2022, very well. On the first day of thefull-scale war, I wrote to all our partners abroad, namely musicians, master class participants, and colleagues. I asked them to donate and spread the word about our fundraiser. I asked if anyone could take in people from our community if necessary. That same day, I created an Excel spreadsheet with seventeen addresses in different European countries where people were ready to take in some of our members.
We quickly reorganized our operations. On March 18, 2022, we launched a fund [Ukrainian Classical Musicians Support Fund] to support Ukrainian musicians and, for transparency, established a board of six people, three in Ukraine and three abroad. The KCMD team was only involved in the operational part, and applications were evaluated independently.
In two years, we supported about 360 people. The initial donation amount of money was set at 3,600 hryvnia, the maximum allowed without additional bureaucracy, so that the donation would reach a person in full.
One person used the money to leave the occupied territory with their family. As far as I know, some of the money went to bribe a Russian soldier at a checkpoint.
There were other cases where musicians did not have concerts to play anymore. If you make a living from performing, and there are no performances, you need something to live on. This money helped such musicians to get by.
We also had a medical support fund for one year. For example, one musician received money from KCMD that he needed for post-operative medical care for his shrapnel-caused injuries.
We weren’t doing anything exceptional as the whole country was doing the same thing at the time. We were just doing our part.
We also started the Music Instrument project. You could apply and receive money to repair or purchase an instrument or something that was essential for your work, like a bow, software, or equipment. We received 193 applications, and there was enough money for only eight applications. A master harpsichord was delivered from Italy to the music academy in Dnipro, requested by Natalia Fomenko. A tenor saxophone was purchased for the Lysenko Lyceum in Kyiv, fulfilling the application submitted by Roman Fotuima. Nazariy Stets received a new bow for his double bass, since his old one cracked due to the low temperatures in the Composers’ Union building in Kyiv. A cellist, Maksym Rymar, purchased a new cello for himself. Dmytro Pashynsky bought a contrabass clarinet, which is now actively used in Ukrainian projects. Alla Zagaykevych purchased an audio interface and an 18-terabyte hard drive for an electroacoustic music studio. There were also smaller purchases, like a Bela Board Starter Kit and a Max/MSP license.
Another important area for KCMD, in addition to supporting Ukrainian musicians within the country, is advocacy for the Ukrainian music community abroad. This is not only about organizing concert performances. We try to create conditions for the complete inclusion and integration of Ukrainian music into the international environment and create platforms for dialoguesamong artists from Ukraine and other countries.
When it comes to concerts, it’s important that Ukrainian music isn’t simply broadcast like a radio program of “a concert of Ukrainian music”. For us, it’s vital to make Ukrainian music an integral part of the international music scene, not only to present it in a high-quality manner.
About management and leadership
It is better to discuss my management experience with the KCMD team rather than with me. The team can tell you more about Albert than I because there are many things you simply do not notice when you are in the middle of a process.
One learns about management and leadership from other people, partners, co-workers, or by attending educational programs. These experiences have greatly enriched me as a person.
I’m a little shy about the word “leadership”, but if you’ve built an organization, you inevitably took on that role. It’s just a role thatcomes with certain obligations that you can handle well on good days.
I also worked in manager positions outside KCMD, at the Ukrainian Institute from 2018 to 2020, when it was just being established, and at the State Agency of Ukraine for Arts and Art Education, where I was involved in reforms of state music policy. I’ve been a manager at both places but only at KCMD do I still have the role of chair.
There is a great deal of work that sometimes goes unnoticed, strategically steering the ship in the direction you want it to go. Sometimes you accidentally run aground, and you and the team must pull it out. Other times, you manage to avoid the iceberg if you have spotted it in time.
If we talk about management in a broader sense, you can Google it and find cool, high-quality courses in Ukrainian created by people who live and breathe this stuff. All of this is greatly needed. However, I believe that it is important “to see the forest through the trees” of management because management is about “how”, behind which there are also questions of “why, for what purpose, and for whom”?
If you see this clearly, management becomes a tool that serves your purpose. There is beauty in this. However, it is important to remember why you are doing all this on days filled with phone calls, Asana, Google Docs, and budgets.
About communicating with partners
It’s important for me to feel that we’re moving in the same direction when communicating with partners, that we share the same values and understand where we’re going and why.
I deeply appreciate the willingness to go an extra mile, not because you must, but because it’s what you want. This is not due to perfectionism, since it, in my opinion, is unhealthy, but rather an internal drive to do better than just enough. This is not about achieving the perfect result, but rather about the values that fill your daily collaboration.
It is essential that everyone has the same picture in mind. There is a parable about four blind wise men who touched an elephant and tried to describe it. One of them held the elephant’s tail, the second its leg, the third its trunk, and the fourth its ear. Each wise man had their own truth, and no one saw the whole picture. That’s what I mean when I talk about a unified vision.
I have never thought about differences in communication with various representatives. Ultimately, I always communicate with a particular person. Even if they are a representative of a large institution, they are still a living human being who leaves home in the morning and returns to their family or friends in the evening. First and foremost, I see the person.
Yes, there are moments of excessive shyness or, conversely, excessive bravado when you are faced with someone of high status. However, very often these people are clear with their “relax, I am just like you” attitude.
I appreciate it when people find time in their schedule to support a project I believe in and support. Behind every “yes, we support you”, there is a lot of invisible work, like internal decisions, administrative processes, and efforts that no one talks about. This is also about our partners trusting us.
Speaking of changes in my communication, I’ve talked less and listened more over time. What else to add? Talk even less.
Advice for those who want to do their own projects
The most important thing is to understand your motivation, who you are helping, and why they need your help. Answers to these questions shape everything else. There are many layers to these questions. I don’t think there is one right answer for everyone,but the questions of “why” and “what for” are crucial. Also, it is important not to exclude yourself from these answers.
Then, based on these answers, you should search for tools toimplement your project. Basically, it’s about management. I’d compare doing your own project to a performance technique, which is never a goal by itself. A performance technique serves music, and without it, you can’t do a lot of things. Yet, music isn’t about technique. The same goes for a project where tools are important, but the question is what the project is about, where it is going, and what you want to change in the world with your project to make it a little bit better. Also, what are you looking for in your project for yourself? The project implementation technique is secondary.
Berlin as a continuation of KCMD
My arrival in Berlin was related to what happened with KCMD in 2022. I worked at the State Arts Agency at the time and was devoting more time to KCMD. At some point, I completely abandoned my main job, which I had taken in 2020, full of hope and determination. KCMD was launching the [Ukrainian Classical Musicians] Support Fund, working with different community groups, and new people were joining the team. The more I got involved, the more I felt that this work was meaningful and useful. So, I started devoting even more time to it.
At some point, we got a new partner, initiative neue musikBerlin. We did one project with them, and then another. Eventually, they asked how they could support us and what was most important to us. I answered that our main need was people who can work full-time, because everything we do depends on human resources. The funds we raised for the Fund went to support musicians, but not to pay the team. It became clear that this couldn’t go on for long.
Our partners came back with a proposal whereby several Berlin organizations would apply for a grant that would allow a KCMD team member to work in Berlin for a year, formally within their structures, but on KCMD projects. This meant the opportunity to work full-time, 30–40 hours a week, doing what you believe in, without having to think about basic things like paying for pizza at Silpo. Four people from our team took advantage of this program.
I was one of them and, in September 2022, I went to Berlin. Others moved from Amsterdam and Chicago, where they were living at the time.
The Kyiv I left behind is different now. Two weeks after I arrived in Berlin, heavy shelling of the city began. I don’t know if I would have made the same decision if these events had happened earlier. However, that is just speculation. I had the opportunity to focus entirely on my work with KCMD in Berlin, and many projects from that period became possible precisely because I had sufficient time to work.
Berlin as an environment
Being physically present in Berlin, a city where representatives of the new music community from different countries live and work in relatively stable conditions, changed the scale of KCMD work.
KCMD’s first big project in Berlin was a festival that we cleverly named Kyiv Contemporary Music Days in Berlin. It was put together in eight months, fast for Germany. The goal was to create opportunities for people to connect and bring Ukrainian artists into the local scene.
We collaborated with two key ensembles, ensemble mosaik and Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin (KNM Berlin). Ensemble mosaik held five concerts across two evenings that featured musicians from Ukraine and Berlin performing works by Ukrainian composers. Together with KNM Berlin, we organized a concert of works by Ukrainian and foreign composers, like Rebecca Saunders, Anna Arkushyna, and others. Double bassist Nazariyi Stets performed as a soloist at the concert.
One of Arkushyna’s works was titled So They Grow Like Sunflowers, an allusion to a video from the beginning of the full-scale invasion, in which a woman from the Kherson region told a Russian soldier to put sunflower seeds in his pocket so that sunflowers would grow from them. We used this title for the concert.
Aside from concerts, Kyiv Contemporary Music Days in Berlin festival included a discussion and video recordings of interviews with Ukrainian musicians, conducted by KNM Berlin director Thomas Bruns.
A different context in Berlin
The KCMD concerts in Kyiv and Berlin were different. In Kyiv, we held these concerts to promote new music, build community, and create a platform for Ukrainian composers and musicians. We also invited people from other countries to help them fall in love with our Ukraine, our Kyiv, and our music.
These initial goals were perceived quite differently in Berlin. It was not about promoting new Ukrainian music in Berlin or about solving community issues as we do in Kyiv, but rather about cultural diplomacy and integrating Ukrainian artists into the local scene, preferably in a way that would work long-term, systematically, and productively.
The idea was that Ukrainian music should be created and played on an equal level with international music that had no problem with visibility and that Ukrainian messages would be conveyed, directly and indirectly, and that empathy and familiarity with Ukrainian culture would grow.
We know quite well how strong the emotional attachment of many Europeans to Russian culture is and how it affects reality.
I see this “red thread” stretching from Gergiev’s concerts in Berlin to what Ukraine is going through right now. When you are attached to a culture, you develop an emotional attachment to the country. Next, you are inclined to support decisions that “normalize” this country, justify it, or at least make it acceptable.
This can work at the political level and at the voters’ level. Let’s imagine that voters have two choices of politicians. One talks about “pragmatism,” “cheap gas,” “not punishing Russian children by taking their chocolate away from them”, and, at the same time, offers to maintain ties with Russia and compromise. The second states things as they are and says that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are genocide, undermine the world’s order, and calls for tougher sanctions, rejection of Russian gas, and firm stands supporting Ukraine.
Chances that voters will lean towards a “pragmatic” decision increase dramatically if they have been “in touch” with Russian music and Russian culture all their life, know almost nothing about Ukrainian culture, have never seen a Ukrainian in person, and have no emotional attachment to Ukraine.
Music is a very effective tool of influence. It bypasses logic and affects the irrational part of a human brain, where decisions are often made before the frontal lobe has time to explain anything. Then the rational part simply comes up with a beautiful argument for the decision already made by emotion.
I realized this during my first years in Berlin. I felt like I was sent on a mission to convey, convince, and explain why the West should support Ukraine. Now, however, I am increasingly thinking this approach in 2026 will not be as effective as it was in 2022.
The next step is to “dive deeper.” We often and rightly say that Ukraine should be treated as an equal partner. However, I caught myself not fully perceiving our partners here in Berlin as equals. Somewhere inside, I had the feeling that if I didn’t spell things out, they wouldn’t “understand”, that they needed to be taughtand spoon-fed the information. That’s not true since we’re talking about artists, and artists aren’t stupid.
It’s important to understand that Ukrainian music is not limited to trauma. There is a large body of musical and abstract works that may not be directly about war and are profound and powerful.
If we, Ukrainians, see ourselves as part of the European cultural space, then it is time for us to talk to international audiences in the language of art as equals, not in the language of “explanations” and “demonstrations” of Ukraine and Ukrainian music.
The time for touring Europe with the remains of a rocket that you play like a cello, if it ever existed, is over.
I am talking about creating music, not public speeches or bar conversations about politics. I have a piece using intercepted voices of Russian soldiers. Now it is probably my least favorite piece. I re-traumatized myself while composing it. I believed I was doing something super important, composing a piece like that, thinking, “how else would foreigners find out about Russian aggression?” However, as music, it turned out to be weak. There was only a moment of shock, and that didn’t make the work anymore sincere, powerful, profound, or interesting.
This does not mean that 2022 was “not right.” Explaining Russian aggression against Ukraine may have been necessary in 2022. However, if someone still “does not see” Russian aggression in 2026, it is often for other reasons than insufficient explanations.
A different rhythm in Berlin
In Berlin, new music fits into a niche, like everywhere else, but this niche is huge, and a lot of people who work in this field come from all over the world. Despite its reputation as “not for the general public,” concerts of new music can attract up to 250 people. There have also been events with 20 people.
However, there is an important difference in Berlin compared with Kyiv. New music is much more isolated in Berlin, even within the music community. Fewer people in Berlin play both classical and contemporary music; these are largely separate worlds in Berlin.
On the other hand, there is a continuity of new music in Berlin. There are institutions, and there is a long history of support. I recently learned about a grant program for composers who have become parents. People realized that the birth of a child could simply “knock” an artist out of their profession and came up with a support mechanism from being lost composers just because their lives had changed. This level of institutional attention to real life is impressive.
At the same time, the new music scene in Berlin is more “conservative” in terms of its audience. In Kyiv, about 80% of the people who come to our events aren’t musicians. While it happens, this is more of an exception in Berlin.
Another difference is the pace. Decisions are made more slowlyin Berlin. It is impossible to find a good venue in two weeks. This is partly due to saturation because there are more contemporary music concerts in a year in Berlin than there are days.
The density of events creates competition for listeners. There were four other new music concerts happening in the city at the same time as we did the So They Grow Like Sunflowers concert. It’s a different reality in Kyiv where a new music concert is an event, and there’s a high chance that almost everyone who’s interested will come. In Berlin, people are constantly choosing between several events in one evening.
Another kind of freedom
My way of working hasn’t changed dramatically; I still sit at my desk with my laptop, just as before. However, I have become more courageous in experimenting, more open to exploring new possibilities.
I see this in the technical solutions I find, in performance formats I choose, and in my stylistic choices. My own horizons have broadened. There is a radical example that I’d like to mention. At a festival in Leipzig, there was an event that could hardly be called a performance. It was more of a participatory work. People were invited into small rooms where they heard cool sounds and, as part of the work, cooked soup together in large pots, ate it, and talked. It sounds like nonsense if you describe it in words. Yet, I saw music in it. Everything was arranged in such a way that the entire three-hour experience felt like a complete musical composition, not a cooking workshop.
This is about freedom, the freedom that we Ukrainians cherish and discuss frequently. Yet, we often become our own prison guards in music. We are trained by a certain school, and we are the first to criticize them when someone steps outside the boundaries. When I say “we,” I am also referring to myself. Moreover, everyone chooses their own boundaries. For some, the boundary is not to keep the tonal center, for others, not to stray from the key; for some, it is “use only French electronic,” for others, “not to write at all if I can’t do it perfectly.”
Paradoxically, Ukrainian musicians enjoy incredible freedom in other contexts. For example, Ihor Zavhorodnii plays classicaland contemporary music, writes academic works and songs, plays the violin and viola, works with Baroque music, has a studio that makes sound recordings, and writes arrangements. At the same time, he collects donations and donates his fees to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. All this is done by one person.
Albert as a composer
I get a little lost when people ask me about my “most representative” works since it’s difficult for me to talk about “representativeness.” It’s like saying, “This is Albert, and this isn’t Albert.” It’s about defining yourself. I’m not very good at looking at myself that way.
I have works in which I am honest with myself and others. For example, I have a piece for violin that is 50 seconds long. Orest Smovzh once suggested that I write something like that for his Condensed Music series. It’s called Il est là [He Is There, from French]. I like that it fits in an Instagram story. I have another piece for a four-voice synthesizer — Il est ici, là, [He Is Thereand Here, from French]. It lasts 14 minutes. It’s as if one theme runs through these two pieces.
I also have a piece written for my curatorial project tvvo:id, which we organized together with Kyiv Contemporary Music Days at the invitation of the Klangwerkstatt Berlin festival. I developed the concept for this project and invited Anna Arkushyna and Ihor Zavhorodnii to participate. The three of us wrote the music for it. The idea was to create a piece for double bass and contrabass clarinet, but these two musicians are never on stage at the same time. One of them is always represented by a projection.
We recorded Nazariy Stets’ double bass part in Kyiv. This recording was meant to reach Berlin, like a signal sent in a capsule somewhere into space, without knowing whether it would arrive or not. In Berlin, the double bass clarinet dialogued with this signal. We understand that Nazariy did not hear Theo when he played his part. This speaks to the impossibility of genuine dialogue, to how different the experiences of Ukraine and Germany are today. These physical and mental divides areimpossible to overcome.
In the last part of the tvvo:id project, I converted air raid statistics in Kyiv over the last 30 days into a MIDI file and “compressed” those 30 days into a ten-minute piece. It’s as if we turned on fast forward 4320 times faster. The 30 days fly by listeners in 10 minutes. We stop hearing Nazariy (he is muted) every time a MIDI trigger is received, with timing and duration proportionate to the timing and duration of a real-life alarm. Instead, we hear the sounds of Kyiv recorded on Yevhen Dubovyk’s voice recorder. Accordingly, when Nazariy played his part for the recording, he did not know which parts of hisplaying would be heard during the performance in Berlin. That was decided by the air raid statistics.
I feel good about these works. It’s like walking into a room that’s arranged exactly the way you want it. I know that I was honest with myself in the process, even if something could have been done better. There’s no desire to prove anything to anyone, to show off, to impress, or to manipulate. In these pieces, I’m just me.
I didn’t write anything for eight years after 2015, when KCMD started. It would be untrue to say that I didn’t have time. Time doesn’t just appear on its own; you must find it. I was completely absorbed in my role as a KCMD organizer. Then, at some point, I realized that I couldn’t go on like this, without composing.
Everything seems fine in your life: projects, team, benefits, and meaning. However, you suffocate and realize that you might jump out the window after another day like this. I needed to go back to writing music to be functional in this life, to write a finished piece, one that I worked on for a while, not just to play something or do something for fun.
I guess I didn’t compose because of the perfectionist demands that I placed on myself and feeling that I must earn approval, try hard, and suffer, and, perhaps then, receive praise.
That’s how we are shaped. We are constantly on stage. The spotlights shine brightly, you don’t see people, but you know they are there. It starts with music school, where you play for serious ladies and gentlemen who grade you, and ends with a professional concert life, where there is an audience, colleagues whom you respect, and, for some reason, you have decided that their assessment of you will be based on whether you have written a cool piece. Composers will understand me. In the end, you are never good enough as a musician, composer, or performer. You must try very hard to feel for a second that you are good enough and that you deserve to exist at all. You understand that none of the projections, judgments, thoughts, and evaluation systems that you imagine in the minds of those for whom you play or write are real, yet you continue to live with them. It is a painful and unhealthy situation.
I am currently studying at the University of Music in Freiburg, at the Institute for New Music with Professor Alexander Grebtschenko. Together with Johannes Schöllhorn, they have created a very healthy environment. The feeling that “everything is fine with you” is one of the most important things I’ve gotten there. My professor doesn’t say it, but I feel it all the time. “Everything is fine with you.” It reminds me of a scene in Good Will Hunting: “It’s not your fault.” It’s something very simple, but not everything that is simple is easy to achieve.
I am gradually moving away from the question of “what will people say?” to “what do I want to say?”, even if people are not interested and fall asleep. I am becoming curious, what can I, Albert, say? What am I interested in reflecting on?
I sincerely wish one thing for myself and all other musicians who have been beaten down by the system of this world: that professional development should not be a tool to earn something, but to realize what is and always has been inside you.
It seems to me that this is a much healthier way to exist in music and to live our one and only life in general.
This material was created and published thanks to a grant from Music Export Ukraine, Canada-Ukraine Fund, Aid for Artists.
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