With the musical performance KYIV ETERNAL by Heinali (8 pm)

Speeches by Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska (Artistic Director of the German Federal Cultural Foundation), Jörg Heiser (co-chair of nGbK) and Vasyl Cherepanyn (Artistic Director of Kyiv Perennial)

Heinali’s latest album KYIV ETERNAL, released in 2023, is an intimate tribute to his home city under attack and a side-step from his established practice of reimagining Early Music. It features pre-war field recordings of Kyiv juxtaposed with ambient “memory loops” from his archives. For Kyiv Perennial, Heinali will perform a live version of KYIV ETERNAL, focusing on pre-war field recordings of different locations in Kyiv and interconnecting them via a psychogeographical route structured by the topography of personal memories.

Oleh Shpudeiko is a music composer and sound artist who records as Heinali. He specializes in electronic music and modular synthesis, taking inspiration from Early Music. Among his works is the award-winning music for the video game BOUND (Plastic/Sony Santa Monica), the 2020 album MADRIGALS, which was shortlisted for the Shevchenko National Prize, and compositions and sound art installations commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The National Art Museum of Ukraine (NAMU), and The Museum of Odesa Modern Art (MSIO). Shpudeiko has a long history of live performances, including appearances at venues and festivals such as NEXT in Bratislava, Musikprotokoll in Graz, Primavera in Barcelona, Unsound in Krakow and Adelaide, Ephemera in Warsaw, Kyiv’s Plivka, and Ukraine’s Next Sound. KYIV ETERNAL was chosen as best album of 2023 by Mixmag Ukraine and appeared on year’s top album lists in A Closer Listen, SLUKH, and Neformat. Jason Farago described it in The New York Times as “a ravishing audioscape of the Ukrainian capital” and “a citywide portrait of beautiful resolution.”