Keri-Lynn Wilson founded the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra weeks after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. She and Peter Gelb assembled dozens of elite Ukrainian musicians from across Europe and Ukraine into a 75-piece ensemble. The orchestra achieved critical success at the 2022 Proms, secured a Deutsche Grammophon recording deal, and toured a monumental Ukrainian-language performance of Beethoven's Ninth in 2023 and 2024. Ongoing bombardment disrupts daily life for many members based in Kyiv, and prolonged conflict risks global compassion fatigue that could erode support as violence and civilian casualties escalate.
People often ask me about my work with Ukrainian musicians, says the Canadian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson. They will say things like, How are things out there? We don't hear much about the war, I guess it's all calmed down a bit.' When I hear that I want to scream, No, it really hasn't calmed down!'. Wilson established the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in the weeks after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
With her husband, Peter Gelb, general manager of New York's Metropolitan Opera, she contacted leaders of the world's top international orchestras and located dozens of elite Ukrainian musicians some working in western Europe, some who had fled Russia, others performing in Kyiv, Lviv or Odesa to establish a 75-piece battalion of culture who would assemble for a few weeks each year.
After three and a half years of relentless conflict, Wilson admits that the orchestra may be a victim of compassion fatigue. There's a danger that the world could lose interest, just as the Russian bombing gets ever more brutal, and as more and more Ukrainians are killed.
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