Not long after the Berlin Wall fell, in 1989, Leonard Bernstein traveled to the once-divided German city and led a performance of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” replacing the word “Freude,” or joy, with “Freiheit” — freedom.
In an echo of that historic concert, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, a touring ensemble formed in the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, presented Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the suburbs of Berlin on Thursday.
And, for the famous “Ode to Joy” choral finale, the text was translated to Ukrainian, with the key word being “slava,” or glory, as in “Slava Ukrainii”: Glory to Ukraine.
“I’m driven by my passion for Ukraine,” the orchestra’s conductor, Keri-Lynn Wilson, said on Thursday afternoon before the concert, at the garden of Schönhausen Palace.
The orchestra, made up of 74 Ukrainian musicians — some of whom live in that country still, some of whom have fled — was about to perform as part of its second summer tour of Europe.
Persons:
Leonard Bernstein, Beethoven’s, Joy, ”, slava, Slava Ukrainii ”, “, Lynn Wilson, Putin, —
Organizations:
Orchestra
Locations:
Ukrainian, Ukraine, Berlin, Schönhausen, Europe