By Nick Miller
Acclaimed conductor Vasily Petrenko has been torn in half by war.
One half looks back gratefully at the hothouse Leningrad schooling that set him up for a hugely successful career (he is music director of the Royal Philharmonic in London and chief conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra); he has friends and colleagues in the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, and his father still lives in Russia.
Hoping for peace: conductor Vasily Petrenko.Credit: Svetlana Tarlova
But his mother was from Ukraine: he has a grandmother there, cousins, nieces and others. He has visited the family village of Motyzhin, 45km from Kyiv, many times. He can picture the basement his relatives sheltered in, without water, gas or power, as neighbouring properties were reduced to ash under Russian assault a few months ago. At one point he lost contact with them completely, scouring Facebook for clues, until finally he tracked them down and helped some escape to Bulgaria.
“Luckily their house is barely touched, just window replacing was required,” he says. “Most of them stayed there during the time of occupation – they live mainly on agriculture and there’s a lot of things to do. Starting from early May they were already doing work on the field, plus helping neighbours. They are relatively safe at the moment, but who knows what’s going to happen next.”
Petrenko doesn’t feel helpless in the face of war. He is determined to do what he can to end it, and prevent it.
In March he announced his decision to suspend his work in Russia, including all future commitments as artistic director of the prestigious Moscow-based State Symphony. In a public statement he denounced the war unequivocally.
“The tragedy unfolding in Ukraine is already one of the greatest moral failures and humanitarian disasters of our century,” he said. “The historic and cultural ties between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, of which I am proud, can never be used to justify Russia’s invasion.”
He called for peace to be restored as soon as possible – and he hopes he can have a role in cementing that peace, through music.
“The life of each audience member, their mental and emotional life is changed in a concert,” he says. “It has a huge peacemaking [potential], nowadays probably more than ever. The more culture we have, the less chances for war – not just on a global scale, but war in a family, in school, at work. All this aggression can be overcome by the art, by the music.”
As he searched for his relatives on Facebook he came across horrors being documented, but he also found people expressing hope and defiance through music.
“I was trying to imagine myself in such a situation, you’re under shelling, you have no power, no water, no gas, literally you’re struggling for food which is scarce, you’re struggling to get any help any information,” Petrenko says.
“Literally all you have is your voice and a flute. And the only way you can communicate to the world will be [with that]. It’s a quiet rebellion against the war, but it’s a very powerful rebellion at the same time.”
He misses personal friends and colleagues in Russia who have stopped talking to him for political reasons, or for fear of being compromised. But he hopes, one day, when peace is restored, to lead an orchestra combining Russian and Ukrainian players – like the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which tries to build a cultural bridge between the peoples and nations of the Middle East.
It could perform “probably in Europe, maybe in Australia and America and around the world”, he says. “And then when it is possible performing in those two countries [Russia and Ukraine]. That could be incredibly powerful.”
“I would like this orchestra to happen – but saying that, in the moment it feels like the [war] is too hot.”
He doesn’t believe we should boycott Russian music in the meantime (though when he takes the baton as guest conductor for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra this week, the program is English composers Vaughan Williams and Elgar).
“Music, painting, any form of art is international,” he says. “To me, culture is to unite the people ... we cannot diminish it, to only show the objects of art according to which nationalities are enemies at the time. To me that’s just stupid.”
Vasily Petrenko Conducts Elgar at Hamer Hall in Melbourne from July 14 to 16, and Vasily Petrenko Conducts Shostakovich at the Perth Concert Hall July 29 and 30.
A cultural guide to going out and loving your city. Sign up to our Culture Fix newsletter here.