Re:trouvailles is the title of the concert performance by the Belarusian flautist and civil rights activist Maria Kalesnikava and the Ukrainian singer and conductor Viktoriia Vitrenko, which will take place on 5 November at the VOICES BERLIN Festival in collaboration with the INTO THE OPEN Festival at the Kühlhaus Berlin, followed by a discussion with the artists.
“At the heart of the piece is the question of what remains between two people when closeness has been impossible for years, and what kind of connection and support endures across distance and time, even where words were lacking. And: what remains when one emerges from such a situation? The evening explores the moment that follows – the new beginnings a person must make after such a time, and how friendship can provide support in this process,” explain Maria Kalesnikava and Viktoriia Vitrenko. “The programme reflects the unspoken and the unlived experiences left behind by the state of incommunicado, and focuses on connection and support – and, of course, on that first moment of encounter after a long period of not seeing one another.”
This movement can be felt in the works performed this evening: It begins with the world premiere of the duo version of a work by the Belarusian composer Liavon Shvir: Radiophobia: A Silent Requiem for Chornobyl for flute, voice and electronics, composed to mark the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, in memory of all the victims of the disaster as well as the victims of censorship and authoritarian regimes. The piece combines the personal experience of elevated radiation levels with the state’s silence on the matter – music that repeatedly builds towards a climax, yet disintegrates, like an atom.
This is followed by Georges Aperghis’ Retrouvailles – Part I, in the version for two performers – a moment of longed-for reunion.
A virtuoso piece by the American composer Kate Soper, Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say, based on three texts by Lydia Davis about the gulf between word and meaning, between mind and emotion, marks a dramatic turning point – a precise echo of the evening’s central theme: what remains when words have been absent for years.
The centrepiece of the programme is a piece developed especially for this evening by Maria Kalesnikava and Viktoriia Vitrenko: the connections, the humanity, the comfort, the hope that have endured despite distance and the passage of time – an intimate message from two people, preserved through time.
From this intimacy emerges the final piece of the evening: the world premiere of a work by the renowned Ukrainian composer Alla Zagaykevych, commissioned especially for this concert – a piece for flute, voice and electronics that pierces the darkness and reveals a glimpse of light and the hope for change.
The evening thus moves at the intersection of music, text, thoughts, feelings, light and electronics: a deeply human, potentially healing experience – not a political statement, but the story of two people and what remains between them.
After the concert, Maria Kalesnikava and Viktoriia Vitrenko will speak with Karsten Witt (CLSX / Karsten Witt Musik Management) and Nikolaus Rexroth (Artistic Director of Into the Open) about art in times of oppression and war, about solidarity and the power of encounter.
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Maria Kalesnikava is a Belarusian flautist, cultural manager and civil rights activist. She studied the flute in Minsk and Stuttgart before becoming a leading figure in the Belarusian opposition campaign against Lukashenko in 2020. Following her abduction by security forces and an attempt to deport her, she was sentenced to eleven years’ imprisonment on charges of “conspiracy to seize power” and spent over two years in solitary confinement. She was released in December 2025 and now lives in exile in Berlin, where she has resumed her artistic activities.
Viktoriia Vitrenko is a Ukrainian soprano, conductor and curator. Her debut album *Szenen* (2019, AUDITE), featuring chamber music by György Kurtág, was awarded the Supersonic Pizzicato Award; this was followed in 2024 by the album *Forgotten Words I Wished to Say* (Sony Classical) with Alexei Lubimov. She has performed at venues including the National Opera of Ukraine, the Opéra national de Lorraine (NOX-2) and at leading festivals for contemporary music such as ECLAT, Heroines of Sound and Gaudeamus Muziekweek, and has conducted orchestras such as the Haydn Orchestra, the Munich Symphony Orchestra and the Stuttgart Philharmonic.
Viktoriia Vitrenko and Maria Kalesnikava jointly founded the INTERAKT Initiative – an interdisciplinary association focusing on socio-political issues – in Stuttgart in 2017. Since its inception, more than 35 national and international projects comprising over 250 events have been developed. Since 2020, the initiative has been increasingly committed to promoting democratic processes in Belarus and Ukraine – through cultural and political campaigns such as a postcard campaign addressed to 1,000 political prisoners in Belarus, an intervention festival in the Stuttgart area to coincide with the Long Night of Democracy, and a festival of Ukrainian contemporary art and culture.
Re:trouvailles
Maria Kalesnikava: flute, composition, direction
Viktoriia Vitrenko: vocals, composition, direction
5 November 2026, 7.30 pm
Kühlhaus Berlin
VOICES BERLIN Festival, in cooperation with INTO THE OPEN
