Tomorrow, May 9, on the stage of the National Academic Theater named after Maria Zankovetska, the charity jubilee concert “Opened Life” will be held with the participation of an orchestra of Zankiv residents and blind soloists from all over Ukraine. All proceeds will go to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It starts at 18:30.
As Oksana Potymko, the founder of the Opened Life project, said, 18 participants will perform in the concert program, six of whom are children, aged 9 to 14. They represent different regions of Ukraine: Lviv, Rivne, Poltava, Kryvyi Rih, Mykolaiv Region, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv.
“For the first time on such a scale, a charity inclusive art event will be held in Ukraine, in which children and people with visual disabilities, together with stars and an orchestra, will collect funds to support one of the units of the special operations forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. All funds collected by the participants and organizers will be transferred to a designated unit to purchase the necessary technical equipment for our military. The entire lost amount (about hundreds of thousands of hryvnias) will be paid by the NGO “Rotary Club Lviv – Leopolis”. Joint efforts – to victory!” – commented Oksana Potimko, the founder of the project “Opened Life”.
It should be noted that the inclusive project “Opened Life” founded in Lviv has no analogues in other European countries and in Ukraine. The orchestra of the Maria Zankovetska National Theater is the only group of musicians in Ukraine that has been cooperating with gifted blind performers from Ukraine and various European countries (Lithuania, Poland, Georgia, Sweden) for 15 years in a row. During 2008-2023, almost 90 concerts of the project were held in all regions of Ukraine, as well as in Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, Slovakia, Belarus, Hungary, and Moldova. The project united about a hundred musicians, singers, famous Ukrainian and foreign artists.