The orchestra members arrived safely in Ljubljana today by two buses. The musicians are aged between seven and twenty.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes because of the fighting in Ukraine. People are facing a humanitarian catastrophe in the middle of Europe. So far, more than one million people have fled across international borders. Many of them have only been able to take what they could carry with them.
The Slovenian Youth Orchestra (SMO) with conductor of the SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana and artistic director of the SMO Živa Ploi Peršuh responded to the request for help in the time of need of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (YSOU), led by internationally renowned conductor Oksana Lyniv, who is also the artistic director of Teatro Bologna. The Ukrainian Youth Orchestra was founded in 2016.
The evacuation of the sixty-two young musicians and their chaperones, members of the Ukrainian Youth Symphony Orchestra, was initiated by the Slovenian Youth Orchestra.
The first members of the orchestra arrived safely in Ljubljana today on two buses. Since they don't let boys of age out of Ukraine, it was mostly girls who came to us. They have been travelling for two days from their homeland to the Záhony railway station on the Hungarian-Ukrainian border. They were captured in Záhony by Del's photographer Jure Eržen.
The musicians are aged between seven and twenty. Those who went by car will try to get to Budapest today.
Miroslava Bundziak, a 20-year-old violinist from Kiev, told journalist Boštjan Videmšek: "They told me that we will be able to continue making music in Ljubljana in peace. But my thoughts are in Ukraine."
Medium: Delo.si
Authors.
Date: Mon, 7 March 2022
Link: Evacuation of young musicians from Kiev to Ljubljana - Delo