The Washington Group

On November 20, 2022 a provisional TWG Board of Directors was elected. It was tasked to revitalize TWG and prepare a TWG Annual Meeting for February 2024 to be fully compliant with TWG by-laws. The new TWG Board of Directors consists of: Laryssa Courtney, President; George Masiuk, Vice-President; George Hnatiw, Treasurer; Tania Chomiak-Salvi, Secretary; George Masiuk, acting Membership Director; Michael Drabyk, Public Relations Director; Adrian Pidlusky, Public Relations – Social Media Director; Alexa Chopivsky, Events Director; Andrew Bihun, Immediate Past President; Laryssa Courtney and Christine Lucyk, TWG Cultural Fund Co-Directors; Adrian Karmazyn, TWG Fellowship Fund Director; Members-at-Large – Arthur Belendiuk, Orest Deychakiwsky, Natalie Korytnyk, Lydia Martinec, Rosalie Norair, Oksana Shulyar.

Please take a look at our recent and past accomplishments by clicking through the slide show below.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

New announcements coming soon…………

RECENT PAST EVENTS

November 3, 2024: Concert by Violinist Solomia Soroka and Pianist Arthur Greene Marks TWG’s 40th Anniversary

Ukrainian Music in Time of War

by Zhdana Krawciw Skalsky

On November 3, the Washington Group Cultural Fund presented violinist Solomia Soroka and her husband, pianist Arthur Greene, at The Lyceum in Alexandria, Virginia. Six Ukrainian composers were featured spanning music from the eighteenth to the twenty -first century. Before each piece, Ms. Soroka spoke briefly about the composer and the composition. Her commentary added to the understanding of the music and provided immediate rapport with the audience.

The first work in the program was a Sonata for Violin and Piano by Maxym Berezovsky who is considered one of the most important composers of 18^th century Ukrainian music. The Sonata is written in a three-movement classical style and the performance was impeccable with perfect balance between the violin and the piano. The seamless ensemble playing throughout the recital was a testament to the performers’ close collaboration.

There followed two solo works for the piano, Zhurba (Sadness) by Mykola Lysenko and a prelude by Vasyl Barvinsky both performed with great sensitivity by Mr. Greene. Barvinsky’s manuscripts were destroyed during the Stalinist reign of terror, but much of his music survived in private collections and is now available in print. Lysenko was a composer in the late Romantic period who is often referred to as the “father of Ukrainian music” and he often incorporated folk tunes into his compositions as in the Second Ukrainian Rhapsody for violin and piano duet, the closing work of the first half of the program.

The second half of the recital was devoted to contemporary Ukrainian music. Ms. Soroka and Mr. Greene have worked closely with Yevhen Stankovych and have recorded most of his compositions for violin and piano. Two of the pieces, Ukrainian Poem and Maydan Fresco, were included in this recital. Maydan Fresco was composed in 2014 and was inspired by the protests on the Maydan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv. In the words of Ms. Soroka: ”Stankovych’s composition is very descriptive…with fights and screams, but also fear hope, desperation and, in the last section, the shock of death”. Now, ten years later, with the horrors of Russia’s war in Ukraine, this piece truly resonated with the audience.

 Bohdana Frolyak is a prolific composer and her work Venus in Furs for violin and piano is based on the novella of the same name by Leopold Sacher-Masoch, who was born in Lviv. The melodic line for the violin and the constant rhythmic chords on the piano were superbly executed by Ms. Soroka and Mr. Greene.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Melody by Myroslav Skoryk has become probably the best-known Ukrainian composition other than the Ukrainian National Anthem. There are many arrangements of this piece and Mr. Greene played the version for solo piano. The performance was breathtaking. Skoryk’s music is contemporary in its means of expression, but also draws on the wealth of Ukrainian folklore. The Hutsulian Triptych incorporates themes from Ukrainian folk music, and provided a showcase for the amazing technique and musicality of the Soroka and Greene duo. At the conclusion of the recital, Counselor Kateryna Smagliy of the Embassy of Ukraine praised the artists for championing Ukrainian music and congratulated The Washington Group on its 40^th anniversary. Laryssa Courtney, President of TWG, gave awards to George Masiuk and Mary Rudakevych for their many years of service and continuing dedication to the organization. A celebratory reception followed the concert.

From the Concert:

Mykola Lysenko’s Second Ukrainian Rhapsody — VIDEO

Yevhen Stankovych’s Ukrainian Poem — Video

Note: The links above enable both streaming and the downloading of the video file. For optimal experience, downloading and then playing is recommended. The video below is Stankovych’s Maydan and is my attempt to test out a new capability using Jetpack video service.

November 1, 2024: Distinguished Speaker Series: John Hewko, Rotary International CEO, addressed TWG

Keynote speaker John Hewko, CEO of Rotary International (4^th from left) with board members of The Washington Group and Kateryna Smagliy (Counselor, Political Affairs and Public Diplomacy, Embassy of Ukraine)

Full Article

Video of Event Introduction by TWG President Laryssa Courtney and speech by Ukrainian Embassy DCM Denys Sienik

Video of John Hewko’s introduction by TWG Events Director Alexa Chopivsky and keynote speech by John Hewko

Excerpts from full article:

John Hewko, CEO of Rotary International, spoke at DACOR Bacon House in Washington, D.C. as a speaker in TWG’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

Mr. Hewko opened his remarks by recalling that the last time he addressed TWG was in 1991 just in the aftermath of Ukraine’s independence (Video of 1991 speech).

Mr. Hewko offered a historical perspective to offset in part the sadness and anger resulting from the current state of war. Having served in Ukraine as the executive secretary of the International Advisory Council to the Ukrainian Parliament in 1991-1992 and then as founding and managing partner for Baker McKenzie (1992-1996), he described the hesitant steps Ukraine took in declaring its independence, the deep divisions in the country, and how there were few functioning institutions at that time. The current war has unified the country. Ukrainian language is now prominent. As an example, prior to the war, Rotary meetings in eastern Ukraine were typically conducted in Russian and now are conducted exclusively in Ukrainian. Ukraine is now accepted in the world as a legitimate country with a history and a language. It is no longer confused with Russia (except by Putin). For the first time in history Ukraine has an army that can hold its own. Ukraine after the war will be orientated toward the West.

Mr. Hewko emphasized the crucial role of civil society in all aspects of the current war in Ukraine from initial humanitarian assistance to future role in the reconstruction of Ukraine after the end of the war. When the war began Rotarians spontaneously mobilized. Seventeen million dollars were collected within days. Hundreds of Rotarians set up capability to help refugees. Eighty million dollars have been collected up to now. Civil society is nimble and can fill in gaps that government actions leave.

Post war reconstruction will take a long time. Complicating factors include: Ukraine’s demographic crisis, the social tension between those who stayed in Ukraine vs. those who fled abroad; tension between those who served in the army vs. those who did not.

Private sector has the resources needed for reconstruction. For these resources to be effectively deployed the most important factor will be the fight against corruption and the implementation of rule of law. Joining the European Union and meeting its entry requirements is crucial in the fight against corruption. Civil society needs to act both as a watchdog overseeing Government efforts at reconstruction and as a sled dog actively and directly engaged in the reconstruction effort. A Code of Conduct for organizations engaged in these efforts was signed in Rzeszow, Poland. Mr. Hewko signed as the representative of Rotary.

In the final segment of his speech Mr. Hewko noted that after World War 2 Germany and Japan underwent profound self-examination and transitioned to becoming normal countries. Russia has not. For Russia to become a normal country Ukraine has to defeat Russia on the battlefield. The Biden policy of providing Ukraine with just enough aid for it not to lose will in fact result in Ukraine losing. After a frozen contact agreement Ukraine will permanently lose Russian occupied territories because anything Ukrainian in those territories will be purged by the Russian regime and Russians or Central Asians will be relocated on these territories. And Russia will remain a permanent threat.

Former TWG President Yaroslav Bihun (1943-2024)

Once again, we share the sad news that one of our former TWG Presidents has passed away. Yaro Bihun, TWG President 1988 – 1990, died on August 30 from complications following a fall. Yaro wore many different hats over many years of activity in our organization: TWG NEWS editor and publisher (1993-2001), journalist and photographer chronicling TWG and TWGCF events, and graphic designer producing TWG Conference brochures, membership directories, and TWGCF event programs. He was truly indispensable. And most importantly, he was a true friend and mentor to many of us. Our hearts go out to his family, among them his brother Andy Bihun, who is also a former TWG President, and his wife Lesia Bihun, a longtime member of the TWG Cultural Fund committee. A funeral mass will be held on Friday, September 20 at 11am at the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family.  May he rest in peace. Vichnaya pamiyat.

Laryssa Courtney

President, The Washington Group

OBITUARY

Eulogy, delivered by TWG President Laryssa Courtney on September 20, 2024

TWGCF 25th Anniversary Celebration on May 19, 2019 at the Alexandria Lyceum. L to R: TWGCF Co-director Laryssa Courtney, Yaroslav Bihun, Stefania Dovhan, Rosalie Norair, Sonia Sonevytsky, TWGCF Co-director Christine Lucyk

Former TWG President Ihor Kotlarchuk (1943-2024)

It is with great sadness that I share with you the news that our former TWG President (2000 -2005) Ihor Kotlarchuk has passed away. His leadership of TWG was exemplary and he will be missed by his many friends and colleagues. Ihor passed away after a long and courageous battle with Parkinson’s disease. Our hearts go out to his beloved wife Natalia Holub, who was an active member of the TWG Cultural Fund when she was Cultural attaché at the Embassy of Ukraine. May he rest in peace.

Laryssa Courtney

President, The Washington Group

Ihor Kotlarchuk and wife Natalka Holub at Pro-Ukraine Rally in Washington, DC circa 2023

Link to Obituary

Link to Eulogy delivered by TWG President Laryssa Courtney on June 29, 2024

Summer 2024: TWG Summer Intern at the Embassy of Ukraine Comments on His Experience

Embassy of Ukraine First Secretary Kateryna Smagliy, Daniil Miroshnichenko

During my internship at the Embassy of Ukraine I was deeply involved in a range of activities which offered me a comprehensive understanding of international relations, public diplomacy and the functioning of the embassy as an institution. This hands-on experience not only enhanced my knowledge, but also sharpened my skills in executing work in a fast-paced environment. The internship has played a key role in shaping my academic and career path, giving me a strong foundation in international diplomacy and a clearer idea of my future goals in this field.

Daniil Miroshnichenko

Background….The Embassy of Ukraine had selected Daniil Miroshnichenko, a School of Public Affairs student at American University, for the summer internship. Daniil Miroshnichenko is studying Political Science, Global Security, and International Political Economy. He is a Research Assistant at the Eurasia Center where he analyzes Russian information warfare. He is a co-founder and volunteer in the charity organization “Kozhen Maye Znachennya” (Each of Us Matters).

Many thanks to the TWG Internship committee consisting of Adrian Karmazyn, Orest Deychakiwsky, and Natalie Korytnyk for providing the Embassy with excellent internship candidates from which the Embassy has made the selection. The committee received more than 20 applications for the internship.

July 13, 2024 Pianist Stanislav Khristenko Concert Marks TWG Cultural Fund’s 30th Anniversary

Stanislav Khristenko presented a program featuring preludes written by twelve Ukrainian-born composers at the Alexandria Lyceum. In addition to performing the preludes, Mr. Khristenko provided interesting commentary about the compositions and the composers.  

As an introduction, Mr. Khristenko played three works by Johann Sebastian Bach, two preludes and the Chaconne in D minor arranged for piano for the left hand by Brahms. He referenced Bach’s “Well Tempered Clavier” consisting of twenty-four preludes and fugues written in all major and minor keys ordered in a chromatic scheme. He pointed out that eventually a prelude became a short piece of absolute music not necessarily followed by a longer work and that several composers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries wrote sets of preludes. Mr. Khristenko has launched a project of collecting preludes written by composers born in Ukraine and he performed twelve works from this collection. The featured composers were Myroslav Skoryk, Sergei Prokofiev, Maxym Shalygin, Levko Revutsky, Karol Szymanowski, Samuil Feinberg, Vsevolod Zaderatsky, Vasyl Barvinsky, Borys Lyatoshinsky, Samuel Maykapar, Leonid Desyatnikov, and Nikolai Kapustin. Some of these names are well-known while others are not widely familiar. It was interesting to learn about lesser-known composers and be introduced to their music.  Before playing each prelude, Mr. Khristenko presented a biographical sketch of the composer and the historical context in which the work was created. The ordering of the preludes in the program was set in a chromatic scale echoing the arrangement of Bach’s preludes and fugues from the “Well Tempered Clavier”.

Mr. Khristenko is not only a pianist with a formidable technique but also a sensitive and expressive musician. He has been described as a “poet of the piano” and praised for his “emotional intensity”. Both descriptions were vividly displayed as the artist, through twelve relatively short pieces differing from each other in style and mood, was able to create a fascinating musical journey. At the conclusion of the recital, the musical performance and the accompanying narrative were received with enthusiastic applause by the audience.

Mr. Khristenko’s recital marked the TWG Cultural Fund’s thirtieth anniversary. A reception was held after the concert with the centerpiece being a cake emblazoned with “TWG Cultural Fund Celebrates 30th Anniversary.”

Video — Stanislav Khristenko performs Nikolai Kapustin’s Prelude in A Flat Major, Opus 53, No. 17

Concert Program

TWG NEWS (June-July 1994)covering the launch of the TWG Cultural Fund

Extensive Supplementary Information: Ukrainian born composers whose Preludes were performed at the concert – Biographies, Photos, Video clips of preludes performed at the concert, other works.

April 20, 2024 Nobel Laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk Addresses TWG Luncheon

On April 20, 2024, The Washington Group organized a luncheon for Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk at the historic DACOR Bacon House, a private club for foreign affairs professionals located near the White House.

TWG president Laryssa Courtney welcomed the audience to the organization’s 40th Anniversary Distinguished Speakers Luncheon and thanked Ms. Matviichuk for taking time to share information about the important work of her organization. Just forty years old, she heads up the Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, the first Nobel Prize bestowed upon a Ukrainian individual or organization since Ukraine’s independence in 1991.

In her introduction of Ms. Matviichuk, TWG Events Director Alexa Chopivsky mentioned the Center’s many activities aimed at protecting human rights and promoting democracy in Ukraine and the OSCE region. Since the beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2014, these activities have included monitoring political persecution in occupied Crimea, documenting war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Donbas and conducting the #LetMyPeopleGo and #SaveOlegSentsov international campaigns to release political prisoners detained by Russian authorities. 

After the beginning of Russia’s full-scale aggression in February 2022, Ms. Matviichuk together with other partners created the “Tribunal for Putin” initiative to document crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. She authored numerous reports to the UN, the Council of Europe, the European Union, the OSCE and the International Criminal Court. Ms. Matviichuk received many honors and awards, including a fellowship in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at Stanford University. In 2022, the Financial Times recognized her as one of the 25 most influential women in the world.

In her inspiring remarks, Ms. Matviichuk described the wide-ranging human rights abuses integral to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She made a compelling case for why the international community should uphold the rule of law.

Among the human rights abuses Ms. Matviichuk cited: deliberate shelling of civilian infrastructure including schools and hospitals; taking children to Russia and imposing a Russian identity on them; and killing, torturing, and raping civilians. The Center seeks to document all Russian war crimes even in the smallest of settlements. Sixty thousand cases have already been documented.

Ms. Matviichuk said the international order based on rule of law was collapsing. There was a conflict at the civilizational level between democracy and autocracy. The war was not only between Russia and Ukraine. China, North Korea, Iran, and Syria were helping Russia. Democracies needed to cooperate.

The consequence of the breakdown of a rules-based order will be the massive rearmament of the world’s nations. Resources that should be spent to improve the standard of living will be diverted to the military.

If we wanted to prevent future war crimes, she said, the perpetrators must be punished. Historically, war criminals were punished only after a war ended. “We should not wait that long. We need to establish a tribunal for war crimes right now.”

Ms. Matviichuk addressed misguided calls for peace at the expense of justice and of Ukrainian territory. This would only encourage the commission of crimes with impunity. She finished by asserting that Ukrainians would never agree to Russian subjugation.

During the Q and A, TWG Board Member Orest Deychakiwsky, who spent many years with the U.S. Helsinki Commission covering Belarus and Ukraine, highlighted the plight of Nobel Prize co-recipient Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski.  Ms. Matviichuk decried his continuing imprisonment by dictator Alexander Lukashenka.  She noted that many Belarusians recognize the linkage between Belarus’ freedom and Ukraine’s freedom, including the opposition volunteer Kalinouski brigade actively fighting on Ukraine’s side.

Editorial Notes: A version of this article was published in the 04/27 edition of The Ukrainian Weekly. A well documented example of Russian atrocities is the massacre in Bucha.

Summer 2023: TWG Summer Interns at the Embassy of Ukraine Comment on Their Experience

From L-R: Karolina Naidon, Amb. Oksana Markarova, Mariana Piontkovska

Two university students who participated in summer internships at the Embassy of Ukraine with financial support from The Washington Group have sent letters of appreciation to TWG expressing thanks for “the opportunity to work closely with Ukrainian diplomats and gain more insight into Ukrainian-American relations and international affairs more generally.”  They referred to the internship as “a meaningful experience” especially because they “plan to pursue a diplomatic career path and work for the bright future of Ukraine.”

The aspiring diplomats who served as TWG-sponsored interns are Karolina Naidon, a student at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and Mariana Piontkovska, a student at Georgetown University.

For complete article click here.

June 26, 2023. Sacred Land: Music and Poems of Resilience from Ukraine performed by Ensemble Cherubim.

The choral benefit concert for Ukraine, in the beautiful and sparkling mosaic filled sanctuary of the Saint John Paul II National Shrine, was a great success. It was well-attended and featured an ensemble of twenty professional singers, Ensemble Cherubim, who sang in Ukrainian, but, with just one exception, were not of Ukrainian heritage. English translations were provided. The format of this concert was unique, combining beautiful singing in Ukrainian with movement, acting, and powerful poetry recited in English.  It highlighted the past in Ukraine, as well as the present circumstances amid war. By weaving together all the different elements, the expressive and talented conductor and music director, Marika Kuzma, an actor in her own right, choreographed this fluidity and created a very engaging kind of musical theatre. Proceeds from the concert went to United Help Ukraine. Concert Program. Concert Flyer. VIEW COMPLETE CONCERT. Photos from this concert are part of the slideshow “TWG Professional Events” in the Archive below.

March 16, 2023. This Ukrainian American Life performed by contralto Vira Slywotzky and composer pianist Dina Pruzhansky at the Embassy of France.

Proceeds from the Concert went to Razom for Ukraine. Concert Review. Concert Flyer and Program.

May 12, 2021 Soprano Stefania Dovhan and pianist Aaron Thacker perform in (virtual) concert.

Concert on YOUTUBE.

Take a Look at the TWG ARCHIVE