A HARPIST from Ukraine will perform at a North Wales music festival, while asking people to donate money to her war-torn homeland.
Virtuosa Veronika Lemishenko will be performing virtually at the Wales Harp Festival at Galeri Caernarfon and will be interviewed live over a video link by the event’s artistic director, the acclaimed harpist Elinor Bennett.
Ms Lemishenko had recently quit her job with the orchestra in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, after the country invaded her homeland.
The harpist was lucky to escape, with many Ukrainians detained or arrested, while she managed to reach the airport and board a flight.
Her parents Alla and Yuri and her brother, Maksym, decamped to the city of Lviv in Western Ukraine from their home city of Kharkiv, which has been devastated by shelling.
Other family members, close friends and musical associates are sheltering in basements, struggling to find food and resources amid President Vladimir Putin’s ruthless invasion.
Ms Lemishenko, 33, has performed at the Wales Harp Festival on previous occasions, always as a representative of Ukraine, including one appearance shortly after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea in which she wore a Ukrainian national costume for her performance.
This year’s festival will be staged at Galeri from April 12-13, and combines concerts with masterclasses and workshops, offering harpists of all ages and abilities the opportunity to learn from some of the best performers in the world.
Due to difficulties in arranging travel documents, organisers have arranged for the Veronika to pre-record a concert in Paris which will be screened during the festival ahead of the live interview.
Artistic director Elinor Bennett and her husband, Dafydd Wigley, have offered to open their home as a safe haven for members of Veronika’s family but are struggling to secure the appropriate paperwork.
Mrs Bennett said: “We are doing anything we can to help Veronika.
“She is such a courageous force for good.
“Her actions have been amazing from the moment Putin’s violent aggression began.”
Ms Lemishenko is currently touring European cities in Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Germany and France, where she stages concerts and harp workshops in an effort to fundraise for destitute victims of the Russian invasion.
She has also set up the Veronika Lemishenko Charity Foundation in co-operation with the Glowing Harp Festival which she had previously established in Kharkiv.
She said: “I think about my family every moment and try to speak to them and to my friends who are in Ukraine or were forced to leave the country every day.
“The world needs to know that these atrocities are happening right now in the 21st century, people are senselessly dying in front of our eyes and we need to do everything possible to stop this monstrous aggression.”
Before the war Ms Lemishenko had been planning, via her Glowing Harp organisation, to put on a harp festival in Kharkiv this April, organised with her first harp teacher Larysa Klievtsova – a plan which has now had to be abandoned.
Members of the Kyiv National Symphony Orchestra have also offered their support, with the group still touring despite some of its musicians assisting in the country’s defence efforts.
Famed French harp makers Camac are letting Veronika use their Paris studio to record her performance for the screening at the Wales Harp Festival, where she will play three Ukrainian compositions: Dumka (Contemplation) by Vasyl Barvinsky; Memory by Myroslav Skoryk; and Souvenir by her close friend and Glowing Harp composer-in-residence Evgen Andreev.
The Wales Harp Festival will be live for the first time since 2019, as the Covid-19 pandemic forced its cancellation two years ago and compelled it to become a virtual event in 2021.
The finale will see young harpist Gwenllian Llyr play her own arrangement of a Welsh hymn tune, plus music created by Mared Emlyn.
Up and coming jazz harpist Benjamin Creighton-Griffiths will also appear with his band, the Transatlantic Hot Club.
Organised by Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias (CGWM) since 1999, the Wales Harp Festival is now held annually and has also spawned the International Harp festival, held every four years.
The theme for this year’s event is ‘Inspire, Heal, Renew!’.
Mrs Bennett said: “The theme was meant to be one of positivity as we negotiate a way forward out of the pandemic, but with the most tragic irony the world is now facing this terrible war.
“Veronika and her compatriots are symbols of light in this awful darkness, working heroically to defeat the tyranny that is enveloping them and their families.
An appeal from Veronika Lemishenko on her YouTube page:
“She is among the world’s most accomplished young harpists and given all that she is enduring we feel deeply privileged to be able to include her performance at the festival.
“I implore people to watch and celebrate her efforts and get behind her foundation.”
To donate to the Veronika Lemishenko Charity Foundation, click here.
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