{"id":217173,"date":"2023-12-01T18:12:40","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T18:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestwnews.com\/?p=217173"},"modified":"2023-12-01T18:12:40","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T18:12:40","slug":"we-shouldnt-cancel-russian-art-says-world-renowned-australian-ukrainian-pianist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestwnews.com\/world-news\/we-shouldnt-cancel-russian-art-says-world-renowned-australian-ukrainian-pianist\/","title":{"rendered":"We shouldn\u2019t cancel Russian art, says world-renowned Australian-Ukrainian pianist"},"content":{"rendered":"

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London: <\/strong>Alexander Gavrylyuk is one of Australia\u2019s most acclaimed pianists. He doesn\u2019t have a favourite composer, but the Ukrainian-born Australian pianist is adamant that no one should stop playing the Russian greats as a way of protesting against Vladimir Putin\u2019s illegal invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

His website\u2019s most prominent video is his 2017 belting, physical performance of Rachmaninoff\u2019s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor <\/em>at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Alexander Gavrylyuk, seen here at City Recital Hall on Friday, has learnt to let the emotion in the music \u201clead the way\u201d during performances. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>Peter Braig<\/cite><\/p>\n

This month he performed Tchaikovsky\u2019s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor <\/em>at the Sydney Opera House with \u201cexpressive angst boldly worn on his sleeve\u201d, according to our reviewer Peter McCallum.<\/p>\n

While many in the arts community rushed to remove performances by Russian composers in the immediate aftermath of Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, Gavrylyuk was not one of them. He vehemently opposed cancelling Russian artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a clear division between people that support the current government in Russia and artists that spoke about universal humanitarian ideas, things that brought a lot of light, a lot of beauty into the world,\u201d the 39-year-old said during an interview in Marylebone, where he underwent a four-recital residency at Wigmore Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t see the point of cancelling those Russian composers and Russian artists, unless some particular artist has supported Putin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt only creates more polarisation unnecessarily, and it paints the beauty with the wrong colours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gavrylyuk was born in the predominantly Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv. The city, in Ukraine\u2019s east, became known globally when Putin\u2019s troops began pounding it in the early stages of the war. But it was famed as home to Ukrainian intellectuals and cultural figures in the 19th century.<\/p>\n

For the Gavrylyuks, their feelings towards Russia were only positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the same kind of friendship as Australians talk about New Zealanders,\u201d he recalled of his childhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up with a Ukraine that was very connected to Russian language, Russian literature and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he said it would take \u201cgenerations upon generations\u201d of Ukrainians for them to ever feel that way about Russia again \u2013 and only once Putin\u2019s Stalinist and deadly repression of his home country was over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just too much ugliness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gavrylyuk said he did feel compelled to support his country when war broke out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the ways that I can \u2013 fighting wouldn\u2019t be real support because I\u2019m not quite the sporty type,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of charity concerts, raising money for the people there, sending them money directly, that\u2019s what I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

His 66-year-old father is one of the 11,500 Ukrainians who have come to Australia since the start of the war. He said the generosity of countries, including Australia, that are supporting Ukraine\u2019s efforts to try to repel Russian troops from their lands was something they felt \u201con their own skin\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was his parents who started him on piano lessons, under strict Soviet-style tuition, from the age of seven.<\/p>\n

The thin walls of his building, combined with constant power outages, meant his neighbours were treated to free concerts of Chopin and Liszt as he practised, constantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very tough period studying, being eight or nine, having to practise up to 12 hours a day \u2013 that was my experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Two years later, he gave his first concert and four years after that, he was spotted during a competition in Kyiv by an Australian who awarded him and a group of other Ukrainian teens scholarships to St Andrew\u2019s College in Sydney.<\/p>\n

But learning so intensely may have been effective, music was a negative rather than a positive force in his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was difficult \u2013 it took me many years to reshape my relationship with the piano and music,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The trigger came at the age of 18 when he read a book by Russian actor Konstantin Stanislavski, who advocated method acting \u2013 a series of immersive rehearsing techniques. Then his own relationship with music changed.<\/p>\n

Living in Australia also helped. Gavrylyuk said it was a \u201cwonderful discovery\u201d to realise that self-expression could be free.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralians are a very free people, everyone is completely free to express themselves in any way they like \u2013 that was a new notion to me, a nice shock, a very nice shock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what he feels when he plays now, he described a \u201cselflessness and ego-death\u201d thanks to Stanislavski\u2019s method.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt works, actually,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe music starts leading you, as opposed to you creating an interpretation, and that becomes much more powerful than the other way around; when you surrender to the music, it can be a very purifying kind of process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gavrylyuk might not have had the easiest of relationships with music to begin with, but it\u2019s obvious that it was always going to dominate this prodigy.<\/p>\n

He described rushing to the piano each morning, inspired by the revelations experienced in the meditative state between sleep and dreaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wake up with all these clear, fresh visions of what should be done, and I run back to the piano,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He does not compose music himself, as he said he was still curious about how to immerse himself further into performing the music of others, and that he is still striving for more consistency with his performances.<\/p>\n

Backstage, he plays chess on his phone to help soothe the nerves, which still come after three decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nerves are still there, and I\u2019m happy they are because, if they were not, it would mean that you lost the connection to parts of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world.<\/i><\/b> Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. London: Alexander Gavrylyuk is one of Australia\u2019s most acclaimed pianists. He doesn\u2019t have a favourite composer, but the Ukrainian-born Australian pianist is adamant that no one should stop playing the Russian greats as a way of protesting against Vladimir Putin\u2019s illegal invasion of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWe shouldn\u2019t cancel Russian art, says world-renowned Australian-Ukrainian pianist - Best World News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bestwnews.com\/world-news\/we-shouldnt-cancel-russian-art-says-world-renowned-australian-ukrainian-pianist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We shouldn\u2019t cancel Russian art, says world-renowned Australian-Ukrainian pianist - Best World News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. 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