Formed in 2022 by the Canadian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson and in collaboration with the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, the orchestra was established as an artistic response to Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“On the day Putin invaded, I was angry and appalled and immediately determined to do something to oppose this barbarism,” says Wilson. “Not just because I am of Ukrainian Canadian heritage or because I have cousins who live in the country, some of whom have fought on the front line in Donbas, but because this assault on a nation and its culture demanded a response in kind.”

Seeking to defend Ukraine’s cultural heritage, Wilson has sought to fight Putin’s terror through music. “I could not take up arms,” she says, “but I could take up my baton as a weapon.”

First gathering in Warsaw in 2022, her hastily assembled artists had just 10 days to rehearse before making their debut on an emotionally-charged night in the Polish capital.

Since then, the orchestra has earned rave reviews and performed in such hallowed spaces as New York’s Lincoln Center. Comprising over 70 Ukrainian musicians, the orchestra has also won the support of Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska.

“The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra’s remarkable concert tours have seen it become not only the musical voice of Ukraine,” says Zelenska, “but a powerful cultural voice for everyone who cares about liberty in the face of aggression.”

Aiming to raise global awareness of the conflict through the medium of music, the orchestra’s summer schedule will see them open at Saint-Eustache Church in Paris on July 12 before returning to Warsaw two days later to perform at the National Theater.

Thereafter, they will play at the Gdynia Shipyards, themselves inexorably linked with Poland’s own Solidarity era quest for freedom, before heading to Sopot, London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and Washington’s JFK Center.

Of the foreseen highlights, each concert looks set to open with Bucha Lacrimosa, a piece composed by the Ukrainian Victoria Vita Poleva in memory of the civilians slaughtered in Bucha.

Also featured will be a modified version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on the occasion of the symphony’s 200th anniversary.

“The decision to sing Schiller’s great text for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Ukrainian was an important artistic and wider cultural statement for us,” says Wilson. ”Putin is literally trying to silence a nation. We will not be silenced. Our one amendment to Schiller is instead of singing ‘Freude’ (Joy) we will sing ‘Slava’ (Glory), from the shout of Ukrainian resistance in the face of ruthless Russian aggression, Slava Ukraini! (Glory to Ukraine!).”