Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra: 2025 Resilience Tour

At a decisive time in the Ukrainian nation’s continuing defense of its sovereignty and cultural identity, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra will reconvene in August 2025 under the baton of its founder and music director, Keri-Lynn Wilson, for a European tour showcasing Ukrainian artistic excellence.

Building on the extraordinary impact of their three previous summer tours, the 2025 Resilience Tour will present an emotionally resonant program centered around Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, one of the towering masterpieces of music that was written amidst the turmoil of war and personal crisis and has ever since been a cultural touchstone for the journey from darkness into light and triumph over adversity. During the tour, the orchestra will make a live recording of the great symphony for Deutsche Grammophon (DG), following on from the success of their unique Ukrainian-language version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony released by DG last year.

The tour will also feature the premiere of a powerful new work by acclaimed Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets, Suite from The Mothers of Kherson, a moving tribute to the Ukrainian women who made a 3,000-mile journey behind enemy lines to rescue their children forcibly detained by Russian authorities. The suite has been adapted from a new full-scale opera by librettist George Brant, jointly commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera in Warsaw.

American soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen will join the orchestra for performances of Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and Strauss’s poignant Four Last Songs.

CONCERT ITINERARY
14 August 2025: Warszawa, Poland
16 August 2025: Wrocław, Poland
18 August 2025: Lucerne, Switzerland
20 August 2025: Vilnius, Lithuania
22 August 2025: Jūrmala, Latvia
25 & 26 August 2025: Bucharest, Romania
27 August 2025: Amsterdam, Netherlands 
29 August 2025: London, UK

PROGRAMME

MAXIM KOLOMIIETS
Suite from The Mothers of Kherson

RICHARD WAGNER
Preludium i Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde
Rachel Willis-Sørensen – soprano

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra
under Keri-Lynn Wilson