Britten Festival Kyiv 2004, the inaugural edition of the Kyiv Festival, was held under the auspices of the Benjamin Britten International Violin Competition London. The aims of this first Kyiv Festival were not only to promote the Britten Competition in Ukraine and provide the platform on which one of the future editions of the Competition could be brought to Kyiv, but also to promote British music as a whole and the works of Benjamin Britten in particular, to support Ukrainian music and artists and to facilitate and encourage cultural cooperation between the United Kingdom and Ukraine.

While the first Festival’s theme could be described as “Ukraine – Great Britain” (the climax of the Festival was a staged performance, the first time in Ukraine, of Britten’s War Requiem), the leitmotif of the Second edition of the Kyiv Festival was "Ukraine - Europe". It aimed to promote Ukraine's deeper integration into European political and cultural life whilst retaining the Festival's strong ties with Great Britain and the Benjamin Britten International Violin Competition. Kyiv Festival 2005 was held over two weeks in the most prestigious concert halls of Kyiv and Lviv featuring outstanding Ukrainian and foreign artists performing diverse, often unusual repertoire.

The second Festival also incorporated a Week of Cooperation, unique of its kind, between two distinguished music academies: the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London) and the National Music Academy of Ukraine (Kyiv) - an artistic and educational project that included an opera performance (Turn of the Screw by Britten), concerts and masterclasses.

The Third Kyiv Festival took place 20 - 27 April in Kyiv at the National Philharmonic Hall and the National Music Academy and continued the trends established by the earlier festivals. Once again works by Ukrainian and other composers were performed by a number of distinguished international artists. In addition, the Festival paid special tribute to W. A. Mozart whose 250th anniversary is celebrated this year worldwide. Mozart’s works was strongly featured as well as music by 20th and 21st century composers who were particularly inspired by Mozart’s genius such as Alban Berg, Benjamin Britten and Valentine Sylvestrov. Most importantly, the Festival was consistently placing Ukrainian music within a pan-European framework.

For more information on Britten Festival Kyiv 2004 and Kyiv Festivals 2005-2006 please click here to be transferred to the Festival's official website (available in English and Ukrainian).

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Britten-Festival Kyiv 2004