On November 26, the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (YsOU) performed a concert titled “A Night for Ukraine” at the Konzerthaus in Berlin. Supported by the Goethe Institut and the YsOU’s German counterpart, the Federal Youth Orchestra of Germany, the event had patriotic trappings, with blue and yellow light projected on the back of the stage and the call-and-response of “Sláva Ukraini, Heróyam sláva!” during the applause. The orchestra performed works by Bach, Ravel, Myroslav Skoryk, Mykola Lysenko, Anatoliy Kos-Anatolsky, and others, with a minute of silence for the anniversary of the Holodomor man-made famine of 1932–1933.
Despite the national specificity of the concert, it was difficult for me, as a former member of a youth orchestra, to escape the feeling that I could easily have been on that stage, performing in exile from a war-torn country—had I been born later and elsewhere. Though my youth orchestra was a world away in Boston, the YsOU’s performance was full of familiar sense-memories: The slightly piercing A of a young oboe player, the musicians admiring the concert hall as they walked on stage, the smell of food cooked in massive batches in the cafeteria. The specific way a youth orchestra plays too loud sometimes—without arrogance, simply carried away by the sheer joy of making sound with others.
I had spoken with members of the YsOU in March 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion. Most of them were still in Ukraine. Now, many of the musicians are settled elsewhere in Europe, studying at conservatories and adjusting to new lives. For this story, I spoke with four musicians from the orchestra, three whom I interviewed in March, about leaving their homes, reuniting with their friends, and their plans to return.
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