Ihor Voronka, an opera singer, violinist, soloist of the Dumka National Academic Choral Capella, and a participant of the Baroque projects of the Open Opera Ukraine, died in the war on July 6, 2024.
Ihor joined the army voluntarily on the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion. He served in the hottest frontline spots and was wounded twice. Ihor was killed near New York, a village in the Donetsk region, while performing a combat mission. He is now officially missing, as his body remains in the occupied territory.
Ihor was a talented musician and a compassionate and humble man with a subtle sense of humor and extraordinary dedication to his work and people. He spoke several languages and always strove to obtain new knowledge. Ihor left behind only fond and warm memories in the hearts of all who knew him.
Ihor Voronka’s friends, colleagues, and one of his comrades-in-arms shared their memories of him.
Serhiy Kolesnyk
a friend and colleague at the Dumka Capella
Ihor was a man with several degrees. He graduated from the music conservatory as a violinist and then got a degree in symphony orchestra conducting. He worked as a violinist in the symphony orchestra at the National House of Organ and Chamber Music. As far as I know, he had no professional vocal training. However, this did not prevent him from singing with the Dumka Capella and receiving the title of Honored Artist of Ukraine as a singer.
Ihor, as a bass soloist, and I participated in Baroque music projects of the Open Opera Ukraine many times. Ihor also sang and recorded traditional opera arias. He was constantly assigned solos in Dumka because he was responsible and a musician without equals. Trained as a symphony conductor and violinist, he didn’t have difficulties as a singer. Things like pitch and solfège, that ordinary singers spend a lot of time on, were not a problem for an instrumentalist of his level.
It’s a pleasure to talk about Ihor since I don’t have to make anything up. All my colleagues would tell you that he was a unique person with many talents. Whatever Ihor did, he did it well. He was multilingual and spoke four languages besides Ukrainian and Russian. Ihor and I would often start our mornings conversing in German. I also speak German well, and we would jokingly communicate in German with each other.
I met Ihor when I came to work at the Dumka. I was warned that the Capella team had some insincere and manipulative people and was quite challenging in terms of human relation. So, I was nervous. However, when I first came to work, the first person who started talking to me was Ihor. I looked at him and thought: “Oh, my God, this is wonderful. Simple, open, sincere, willing to help.” We immediately became very good friends.
Ihor had a unique sense of humor. Our team had a tradition organizing holiday comedy performance parties. We would prepare very thoroughly, with costumes and skits. Ihor always wrote skits, sometimes not even quite appropriate, but always with sophisticated humor. It was surprising how his personality combined such a sense of humor with a calm, and almost phlegmatic disposition. He was extremely modest in his communication, even pathologically modest.
Ihor was a man with no enemies. Everyone treated him with respect or even admiration, even those who usually were envious or hadcomplexes. Ihor was on good terms with everyone.
How did he end up at the front? It was February 2022, and everyone was running away. I personally also put my family in the car, and we left the city. Literally a day or two or three passed, and everyone recovered and called each other. I wrote to Ihor: “Ihor, where are you?” He replied: “I’m learning a new profession.” I asked: “Which one?” He sent me a picture of himself with a machine gun. I said: “Wow, how come?” He replied that he sent his wife to the Carpathian region and joined the territorial defense. Later, with his territorial defense fighters, he joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Ihor served in all the hot places that existed at that time – the Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Donetsk regions. He was wounded twice. Some men waited for a call-up, some had reasons not to go, and some were turned away. It’s my understanding that Ihor was accepted since he had experience as an active participant in the Revolution of Dignity in 2014.
He has always been what they call a passionate person. Despite his modesty, quietness, and phlegmatic nature, he was among the first to act in crucial moments.
That was his way. He was truly a hero – there is nothing to argue about. A hero who, unfortunately, died because he didn’t take care of himself.
Ihor told me that a bunch of young fighters would come and say to him: “We are afraid, and we are not going. What do you do? People in their twenties are afraid”. Ihor would half-jokingly reply: “Well, what can we do? Uncle Ihor will go.” Believe it or not, he always took on the dirtiest jobs.
The last time we got in touch was on July 3, 2024. I still have the SMS where I congratulated him on his birthday and wrote: “…I wish you strength, strength and more strength! And a speedy return to us! We are proud of you and waiting for you!” He replied: “Thank you, friend, I will!” Then he disappeared from online and we didn’t know what happened and where he was. Later we got the news of his death.
Unfortunately, there is still no information about Ihor’s remains. We only know that he died in the (currently occupied) village of New York. We learned the circumstances of his death from one of his comrade-in-arms. As far as we understand, their task was to get and bring backbodies of their fallen comrades. Accordingly, they were ambushed or were under heavy fire.
Tamara Trunova
director of productions at Open Opera Ukraine
I only have good things to say about Ihor. Theater, in general, is challenging. Theater in Ukraine is even more complex. Therefore, it is a great success to meet a theater person with whom it is a pleasure to work repeatedly in many projects and communicate outside of professional activities.
I don’t see any difference in Ihor as a person and an artist. In fact, as in life, he maintained the same level of connection and empathy in theatrical production processes.
Ihor paradoxically combined a heroic appearance and a penchant for jokes. He always gladly accepted and acted on any of my strange suggestions. It is very valuable to have such a person around, open to going beyond the expected.
We staged two operas with him at Open Opera Ukraine, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Handel’s Acis and Galatea.
In both productions, there was a lot of grotesque, comedy, and jumps between cold and hot states. He did it very well. It seemed to me that this was just his nature.
He even boldly stepped into the role of a female witch. I felt that with each rehearsal we were adding new details and nuances. His colleagues treated him very well, and he was equally well received by audiences and critics.
For the role of the Cyclops Polyphemus in the opera Acis and Galatea, I suggested that he worked in sunglasses without one lens. Later I noticed that he was acting strangely and asked him: “What’s wrong with you?” He said: “It’s very defocusing to look with one eye and not with the other. But I’ll do it, I’ll do it.” He always came in with a positive attitude and immediately accepted new ideas. The only question he had was how to do it.
I have only the warmest memories of Ihor. This is an incredibly big loss.
Serhiy Demchenko
a fellow soldier
On February 24, [2022 – ed.] military enlistment officers did not accept me, and I was searching for an army unit to join. I got into the 206th battalion through a friend. Ihor also enlisted in the 206th battalion on that day. Professional pianists or violinists usually protect their hands because hands are their instrument, but Ihor worked hard with his hands from the first days: we dragged sacks and built all kinds of defense structures. He never shied from hard and dirty work.
Over time, we realized that we could rely on Ihor for everything. He helped us even with such things as translations. Volunteers sent us many things such as food, generators or other equipment with labels in German or Italian. Ihor read and translated everything because he knew those languages. He organized fundraisers himself, which helped our battalion a lot. We bought drones, charging stations, thermal imagers and many household items such as clothes, thermal underwear, and hot water bottles thanks to those raised funds.
Ihor had a one hundred percent sanguine personality. During his two and a half years of service, he never quarreled with anyone. He always knew how to approach different people – such wisdom was beyond his age.
He was not afraid of anything; he was very brave and sincere. We dreamed of the future together. A fellow soldier, who also died, dreamed of having Athos (Ihor’s codename) sing at his wedding. We imagined coming to Ihor’s concert with the whole unit. We dreamed of many things. Only two and a half years passed, and I feel as if I have known this man all my life.
He had a special quality – insight. He saw the essence of any task or process from the inside, not superficially.
He also made us very happy with his beautiful singing, and violin, flute, and harmonica playing. Ihor had never played harmonica before. A harmonica was sent to us one day and he began to master it. He didn’t have an attitude like: “I’m an honored artist; I can do everything.” He was constantly adding to the versatility of his talents.
Ihor learned from everything that came his way. He did everything where he was useful. This included piloting drones and driving different vehicles. We went through sergeant training together and performed various exercises where he showed good results. Most of the time he was in command, as a squad leader, and eventually a rifle platoon leader.
Despite all his experience, status, knowledge and responsibility, he never acted arrogantly. There are people who, if given a little bit of power, behave superior to others. Ihor was not like that.
How did he decide to enlist? He participated in Euromaidan, joining the protests in 2014. He understood where things were going even then. At the beginning of 2022, he, like many of us, was ready to resist. The motto of our 206th battalion is exactly that: “Ready to Resist”. This is very symbolic and completely coincides with the attitude of almost every soldier who went to war in the early days.
Ihor’s body remains under the rubble in the dugout. There is no way to get him out. To retrieve the body, we need physically strong soldiers with shovels and equipment. Ihor’s position was destroyed and the enemy immediately advanced to it, so it was not possible to run in for ten minutes to dig. Ihor is still considered missing.
It is very sad. I cried more than once after his death.
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