Flanders Festival Ghent and Odessa Classics Music Festival, two EFA members festivals, are partnering to dream of a better future for Ukraine on 12 September 2024.

Odessa, the pearl of the Black Sea, was for seven years the home base of Odessa Classics, a young, world-class music festival. But the war in Ukraine put a spanner in the works and the festival could no longer take place there. For the organisers, however, giving up was not an option. The festival began a nomadic existence and since 2022 has been finding a new, temporary home each year in a series of European cities.

Flanders Festival Ghent is donating an evening to Odessa Classics. For their tenth anniversary, as well as visiting Vilnius, Zürich, Luzern and Bremen, they also come to Ghent! For a whole evening, Ghent festival throws their doors wide open for our colleagues from the east, who surprise us with a unique programme on 12 September 2024.

Pianist and artistic director Alexey Botvinov has designed an evening especially for Ghent festival which offers a sample of the cultural scene in his home country. In it he unites some of the country’s leading artists, who are now living scattered all over Europe with international artists connected to Odessa Classics festival. Through music, dance, poetry and video art, we get a picture of Ukraine’s unprecedentedly rich heritage, we consider the current, painful situation, and we also dream about the future. With music by Silvestrov, Skoryk, Karamanov, Bach, Rachmaninov, Richter, Einaudi and Glass, among others.

More info and detailed programme: www.gentfestival.be

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This collaboration has been initiated in the framework of Joining hands and hearts, Festivals for Ukraine, a solidarity action between EFA Members to work with Ukrainian festivals to give them a space and voice.