Keri-Lynn Wilson with The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra © Karpati & Zarewiczs
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra will reconvene for its fifth summer tour this month. Led by Music Director Keri-Lynn Wilson, who founded the Orchestra, it collaborates with The Metropolitan Opera and the Teatr Wielki, under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb in New York, and Waldemar Dabrowski and Boris Kudlička at the Polish National Orchestra in Warsaw.
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra is proud to be under the patronage of Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, continuing its vital role as a cultural ambassador for Ukraine’s artistic resilience. The orchestra will focus on Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in an affirmation of the defiance and invincibility of the human spirit, and Verdi’s Requiem, one of great works of memorial art. Guest soloists for the Requiem include soprano Ailyn Pérez, mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis, tenor René Barbera and bass Soloman Howard.
Also included in the programs are Strauss’s Four Last Songs at David Geffen Hall in New York, which will be sung by Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, whose recent performance of Isolde at the Met left the audience “awed by power you almost never hear in the human voice”, according to The New York Times.
German soprano Julia Kleiter will perform Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, and there will be a reprise of Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets’s Suite from The Mothers of Kherson, premiered by the orchestra in 2025 before the opera’s full theatrical premiere later this year.
All programmes will feature the performance of a new commission by the orchestra, a Gloria by acclaimed Ukrainian composer Bohdana Frolyak. The work, Frolyak says, “is dedicated to all the heroes who have given their lives in this terrible war and to all who stand and defend Ukraine from this total evil”.
This tour follows the release by Deutsche Grammophon of the orchestra’s live recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Maxim Kolomiiets’s Suite from The Mothers of Kherson, which took place on February 24, 2026 – the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The tour takes in six countries across Europe and the United States, with return visits to New York’s Lincoln Center, London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the National Concert Hall in Dublin and the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw.
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra was formed in 2022 by Canadian Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The orchestra comprises leading musicians based in Ukraine, together with those forced to leave the country as refugees, and Ukrainian artists from premier international ensembles elsewhere across Europe. It’s a powerful symbol of cultural solidarity.
Keri-Lynn Wilson leads The Ukranian Freedom Orchestra
On December 22, 2025, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine appointed the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra as Honorary Ambassador in the field of Cultural Diplomacy. The 2026 Invincible Tour is supported by the Government of Ireland as part of the Cultural Programme of Ireland’s 2026 Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Further information and details of concert locations, dates and reservations available on the Ukranian Freedom Orchestra website.
Information sourced from Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra program notes
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