Simon Tedeschi, one of Australia’s most renowned classical pianists, did what he does best this week – play exquisite music with highly talented musician friends – to raise funds to help Ukrainian blind children and their mums/carers relocate from Zaporizhia to Trieste, Italy.
Motivated by the fight Ukraine has been waging against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Tedeschi organised fellow musicians, flautist Sally Walker, multi instrumentalist and composer, Paul Cutlan and one of the leading bandura players in the world, local Ukrainian Sydney-based Larissa Kovalchuk, to join him on stage.
The fundraiser featured pieces by Myroslav Skoryk, one of Ukraine’s most notable 20th century composers and musicians, and a moving and inspirational performance by Tedeschi of the great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson’s gospel “Hymn to Freedom”, which Tedeschi dedicated to Ukraine and its people.
Tedeschi, who lost his maternal Polish-Jewish grandparents in Nazi concentration camps and whose family had to deal with the Red Army, says “I felt motivated to organise [the concert] for a few reasons. I loathe fascism, and that probably has to do with my grandparents’ experiences in Europe during WW2.”
“But I also feel that as an Australian musician, we are compelled by virtue of our relatively comfortable lives to stick up for the underdogs,” he added.
Kovalchuk, a much loved member of the local Ukrainian community, performed two songs on the Ukrainian national instrument, the bandura. Visibly moved by the event, Kovalchuk said “I can’t believe what is happening in my country. But I deal with it how I can – through song.”
In the same week as the cold-blooded murder of Yuri Kerpatenko, chief conductor of the Kherson Music and Drama Theater in occupied Kherson, by Russian armed forces for refusing to take part in a “holiday concert” celebrating Putin’s invasion, the concert showed why culture is important.
The arts define a people, their values and their shared responses to some of life’s key questions – good, evil, love, life and death. Tedeschi’s gathering of his skills, talent and peers to resist and redefine what culture can achieve, and who it can help, reminds us of this power.
