Benefit concert Saturday for Sviatohirsk features more than music

By Paul R. Huard for Ashland.news

An impressive array of Rogue Valley musicians and artists will gather Saturday, Aug. 19, in Mountain Avenue Theatre at Ashland High School to present music, a video documentary, photography, and first-hand accounts in a benefit concert for Ukrainian war relief.

Proceeds from the concert, a silent auction held in conjunction with the event, and any additional donations will go toward efforts to rebuild Sviatohirsk, a Ukrainian city mostly reduced to rubble because of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The program includes:

• The Southern Oregon Repertory Singers, directed by Paul French. The 60-member choral group has a national reputation for musical excellence, performing music from the classical repertoire and contemporary favorites.

• Iryna Kudielina, concert pianist. Kudielina is a native of the Stakhanov, Lugansky, region of Ukraine. In 2019, she won the Erasmus+ Project Competition, a European piano competition for virtuosos. In 2022, Kudielina received the first prize at the 16th Concurso Internacional de Piano do Alto Minho and the first prize at the Premio Elisa de Sousa Pedroso in Vila Real, Portugal. She is a graduate student in piano performance at Southern Oregon University, studying with Dr. Alexander Tutunov.

• Kris Yvon Yenney, M.M. A cellist, conductor, composer, and educator, Yenney has recorded seven critically acclaimed albums and toured extensively. She teaches cello and chamber music privately, and can be heard on numerous recordings performing music ranging from classical to Celtic to jazz.

• Michael Silversher. A Grammy Award-winning composer, Silversher began music composition in 1960, composing hundreds of songs for Walt Disney Studios, Jim Henson Productions, and Warner Bros. Nominated for three Emmy awards with his collaborator Patty Silversher, they were co-winners of the Grammy award for the soundtrack of “Elmo in Grouchland.” They currently have two television series: “Dinosaur Train” and “Word Party.”

• A chorus of Ukrainian family singers will perform traditional music.

• Noted Ashland photographer Christopher Briscoe will make an audio-visual presentation of photographs from his book “The Child on the Train,” which chronicles his photojournalistic examination of Ukraine at war.

• There will also be a brief documentary film about Sviatohirsk and comments by Ukrainian nationals about conditions in Ukraine because of the war.

Betsy Bishop, the now-retired drama director at Ashland High School after teaching there for 35 years, is one of the benefit concert’s organizers. Bishop said Ashland School District donated use of the Mountain Avenue Theatre without charge and the performers will be on stage because of their belief in the cause of helping the Ukrainian people.

Organizers hope to raise at least $5,000 through concert ticket sales, she said.

“The Ukrainians are amazing people,” Bishop said. “It is a shame to see the destruction of a land with such courageous, talented, and resilient people. We know that the Ukrainians want to build a place for themselves in Europe and to build a democracy. We should help them.”

The benefit concert is part of a larger effort by members of the Ashland community to reach out internationally and help Sviatohirsk in a tangible way, said Joe Lessard, Ashland city manager.

“When you understand what the people of Ukraine have been through, then you understand that it is not just physical damage but psychological damage they have suffered,” Lessard said. “It is important for Ukrainians to know that they are not alone, that the world is watching and supporting them.”

On June 20, the Ashland City Council approved a “sister city” relationship between the two municipalities that includes plans for community-funded efforts to rebuild civilian facilities wiped out by the invading Russian Army during its 2022 occupation of Sviatohirsk.

“The city was 70 percent destroyed by the Russians,” said Ben Stott, an Ashland acupuncturist who has volunteered as a relief worker in Ukraine and produced the documentary film.

“They were occupied for four months,” said Stott, who is also one of the advocates for the sister city relationship. “When they (the Russians) left, they stole pretty much everything. They cleaned out the hospital. They just wiped out everything and stole it, and so what we’re hoping to do through fundraising and public awareness is help rebuild the civic infrastructure so that (Sviatohirsk) can get a working government again so people will start to move back to the city.”

To learn more about the Ashland-Sviatohirsk sister city project and ways that you can help, visit ASAPAshland.org. Information about Ashland’s sister cities can also be found at ashland.or.us/SisterCity.

Email freelance reporter Paul R. Huard at [email protected].