Fr 9.10.2026
The musician Maria Kalesnikava is a central figure of resistance against Belarusian dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenka. She spent more than five years in detention, partly in isolation. ORF musikprotokoll and the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz drew attention to the plight of the prisoner through joint events; in 2023 she received an honorary doctorate. Her flute, placed on the stage, made Kalesnikava’s absence palpably felt.
In 2024, soprano Viktoriia Vitrenko dedicated a song recital to her at ORF musikprotokoll. Following Kalesnikava’s release at the end of 2025, the two share the stage together: with the RSO Vienna under Lin Liao they perform the world premiere of a double concerto by Liavon Schwir.
Kalesnikava has become an icon of the freedom movement. Alessandro Baticci reflects on such mechanisms in Genesis of an Icon. Mirela Ivičević, too, works with powerful symbols in Red Thread Mermaid, drawing on songs from the former Yugoslav lands. The work is dedicated “to all fellow outsiders in the discouragingly fascist world of today.”
Conductor: Lin Liao
The compositions by Alessandro Baticci and Mirela Ivičević are commissions of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), curated by ten public broadcasters — including ORF musikprotokoll — and reserved exclusively for their orchestras. The composition by Liavon Schwir is a commission of ORF musikprotokoll. Kindly supported by Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung.