Ukrainian composer Roman Hryhoriv releases album Irrenaissance, featuring music played on cluster munition frame

Roman Hryhoriv, the co-founder of the Opera Aperta contemporary opera laboratory, composer, and winner of the UP.100 award for 2023, has released an album titled Irrenaissance. According to the Claquers media outlet, all the compositions on the album are played using the frame of a cluster munition from an Uragan multiple-launch rocket system.

The album Irrenaissance consists of 12 tracks. Several pieces are performed solo using the missile, while others feature a triptych involving the missile and orchestra. There are also tracks with vocal accompaniment. The only track that doesn't feature the missile is the final one, titled Gloria.

"On the one hand, the irrenaissance is about the revival and decolonisation of Ukrainian culture in the context of war, and on the other hand, the irrenaissance is something opposite to the renaissance. Because what kind of renaissance can there be today, played on a missile? Since the beginning of the full-scale war, we have been reborn as a society and our culture and non-colonial art have been revived. But this revival comes out of death. Thus, the main purpose of the album is to remind the world once again that the genocidal war unleashed by Russia is still raging in Ukraine," said Hryhoriv.

The composer recorded the first pieces together with the Kyiv Camerata in June 2023. They performed three pieces accompanied by a chamber orchestra at St Andrew's Church.

The compositions were later performed both in Ukraine and abroad. The first concert took place in November 2023 in Ivano-Frankivsk, followed by a performance in Berlin during the Ukraine Recovery Conference in June 2024. Additionally, a concert was held in October at Blenheim Palace in Oxford, England, at the invitation of the Oxbridge Foundation.

Outside of Ukraine, the perception of the performance was different. "While the audience in Ukraine was absorbed in the performance and sat in complete silence, abroad, it was perceived as a normal performance. In Berlin, some people were really moved by this action, which I call a performative ritual, but many others took it as just a performance. They couldn't believe that the missile was a real spent projectile, not a dummy. After the performance, they approached the missile and took selfies with it, smiling. Such a misunderstanding of the situation was very offensive".

You can listen to the album on Spotify, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music.

The album was created by Roman Hryhoriv (concept, composer and performer of the missile part), Olena Shykina (electronics), Antonii Baryshevskyi (piano), Andrii Koshman (voice), Marichka Shtyrbulova (voice), Andrii Shakhadynets (recording and mixing), and Viktor Vintoniak (project producer).

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