On Saturday 20 June at 19:00, the world premiere of a large-scale work of contemporary Ukrainian art music — the symphonic suite “Bridge Between…” by composer Serhii Piliutikov — will be performed at the Lviv Organ Hall at 8 S. Bandera Street. The score will be played by the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Luhansk Regional Philharmonic under the baton of the Organ Hall’s Director, Ivan Ostapovych.
According to the organisers, the new suite is a work of metamodernist aesthetics that brings together different cultural layers: from the Japanese context of the 1950s and Viennese classicism to the atmosphere of the American highway and motifs of Christian theology. The work lasts around 75 minutes, and is being described as an attempt to bring the large symphonic form back into contemporary musical life in an age of “clip” thinking.
The story of its creation has become an important part of the project. Serhii Piliutikov worked on the score in Kyiv during the harsh winter of 2025–2026, in the conditions of full-scale war — under constant shelling, in the cold and with power cuts. Despite these circumstances, the composer completed this large-scale work which, in his words, is intended to hold the listener’s attention throughout the entire musical narrative.
“I would jump up at five in the morning, in the dark, and, wrapped in a blanket, switch on a dim autonomous lamp and plunge into a completely different reality. How can one make sure that a modern person does not lose the thread of the musical narrative by the third minute? At first this task seemed fantastical. But, as always, the eyes are afraid, the hands get on with it,” shares composer Serhii Piliutikov.
The suite “Bridge Between…” consists of four story-like movements, each reflecting stages in a person’s inner transformation. The first movement is entitled “The Night-time Dispute Between the Carp Magoi and Monk Hayashi Yoken, 2 July 1950” and tells of the destructive power of envy of beauty, which resonates with today’s tragedies. The second — “A Draft with a Hole” — turns to the figure of Beethoven and his disillusionment with Napoleon, transforming this story into a metaphor for liberation from idols and the formation of the “human-as-creator”.
The third movement, “Route 66”, is linked to the idea of a personal journey and acceptance of one’s own imperfection, as well as to the dynamics of constant searching. The finale, entitled “The Eighth Day”, goes beyond the sense of linear time and is conceived as a hymn to the victory of the spirit, where love overcomes temporal limitations and life reveals itself in all its fullness.
Lviv Organ Hall invites the public to witness this premiere which, according to the creators’ intention, is meant to become a powerful emotional experience and a contribution to shaping a new Ukrainian musical history.
The suite “Bridge Between…” was specially commissioned by Lviv Organ Hall as part of the long-term Ukrainian Live strategy, which has been running since 2019 and is aimed at developing Ukrainian art music. Within this initiative, the hall commissions works from contemporary composers, which are later performed live, recorded for radio broadcast and published in the Ukrainian Live Classic mobile application and on the eponymous YouTube channel.
During the course of the project, several symphonies, concertos for organ and orchestra, and chamber compositions have been created. Among the composers who have already written music to commission from the Organ Hall are Zoltan Almashi, Oleh Bezborodko, Oleksandr Shchetynsky, Bohdana Frolyak, Oleksandr Rodin, Serhii Leontiev, Dmytro Malyi, Mariia Sleptchenko, Volodymyr Bohatyriov and other Ukrainian composers.