MUSIC OF THE HEART

 

Recently, I came across an interesting story in BBC Music Magazine (given to us by a neighbor when he finishes with his issue). It caught my attention as the woman in the article is a conductor born in Kyiv, Ukraine, though her family moved to Estonia when she was a toddler. When she was five, DALIA STASEVSKA and her family fled the Soviet Union to Finland (where her mother is from) with little more than the clothes they wore. Her artist father and grandmother a made sure the Ukrainian culture was carried on with stories and folk songs, and Ukrainian was spoken at home.

Last year she had her first child, at the age of 39. The little girl is a direct descendant, on her father’s side, of Jean Sibelius. Her career is flourishing and in the UK she is known as the charismatic principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In the USA, she was named a 2023 New York Times “breakout star”. At home in Finland, she is chief conductor of Lahti Symphony Orchestra.

When Dalia was 8, her parents gave her a violin, telling her she could make a profession out of playing an instrument. But she didn’t feel emotional about music until she was 12, when a school librarian lent her a recording of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” She had never 

heard an orchestra before, and was amazed by the power and drama of the score.

 As a teenager in her bedroom, she played along as she blasted Beethoven symphony recordings by giants like the conductor Herbert von Karajan. Then, when she was 20, she began to see another path. She was inspired after she saw a concert led by the conductor Eva Ollikainen; she had never seen a woman conduct before.Suddenly I was thinking: ‘Wait a minute, I’m interested in scores, I love orchestra music. Why can’t I try this?’”

One day in an elevator, she cornered the eminent Finnish conducting teacher Jorma Panula, asking if she could study with him. Panula mentored Esa-Pekka Salonen and Susanna Mälkki. He pulled a receipt from his pocket, and wrote a phone number for her to contact the organizer of an upcoming master class.

After graduating in 2012 from the Sibelius Academy, the storied conservatory in Helsinki, Stasevska began a steady rise, starting as an assistant to Paavo Järvi at the Orchestre de Paris. In 2019, she was appointed to her post at the BBC Symphony, and in 2020, she was selected to lead the Lahti Symphony.

She made a memorable debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2021, in which in The New York Times, described her conducting as “powerful but never overly brash.”

When the invasion began, Dalia was devastated, concerned for the safety of her friends and family. Her brother was living in Kyiv and studying to be a movie director. 

She struggled to focus on music and resolved to cancel an appearance in March with the Seattle Symphony and take a break from conducting. But her husband and manager helped her change her mind. She then decided she could use her platform to oppose the war.

Working with her two brothers, as well as the Ukrainian Association in Finland, she began soliciting donations to buy supplies. They have gathered contributions from thousands of people and have purchased generators, stoves, clothes, sleeping bags, vehicles and other items. They purchase van and load them with much needed items.

In the fall, eager to bring a “moment of normality to a country where nothing is normal,” she traveled to Lviv to deliver supplies and to lead a concert of Ukrainian music. She said it was important for Ukraine to promote its culture as a way of opposing Russia, citing the example of Sibelius whose works around 1900 were often interpreted as yearnings for liberation from Czar Nicholas II. (She is married to the Finnish bass guitarist Lauri Porra, a great-grandson of Sibelius.) 

“I really have hope; I know that Ukraine will win one way or the other. We just have to be human in this moment and do the right thing.” She has said that while Finland is her country, Ukraine has her soul!

(TO BE CONTINUED)