UK–Ukraine Cultural Bridge
Lviv's early-music scene has been built by musicians with real curiosity and determination, often working with very little. In 2025, Music Will Save The World brought British Baroque musicians to the city to work alongside their Ukrainian colleagues. What began as a performance grew into an ongoing exchange of music, experience and, eventually, instruments.
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This is the story of the people who made that exchange possible, and of a consort of viols now beginning a new life in Lviv.
A project rooted in Lviv
Lviv matters to this story because it already had the people, the energy and the artistic commitment. What it lacked was access to specialist support, historical instruments and the kind of international collaboration that can help a musical culture grow stronger from within.
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The UK–Ukraine Cultural Bridge grew out of that need. It connected colleagues in Britain and Ukraine through a shared belief that early music should remain a living practice, not something held at a distance by geography or circumstance.
Photo by Sophie Andreyeva
The people and partners behind it
The Cultural Bridge has been carried by many people on both sides of the journey. Music Will Save The World has worked with the Lviv Early Music Foundation and the Lviv National Philharmonic. In Lviv, the work has been rooted in the musicians who are growing the scene day by day, and later in the Lviv Early Music Foundation.
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Volodymyr Syvokhip and Ihor Muraviov supported the first Lviv project. Alongside Anna, John, Hanna and Serhiy, many other musicians and supporters have contributed their time, expertise and care to the exchange. It is this combination of local commitment and visiting expertise that has allowed the work to keep growing.
How it began
Before the first visit, historical performance in Lviv was still a developing field. There were only a handful of Baroque instruments in the city, yet musicians such as harpsichordist Hanna Ivaniushenko and violinist and violist Serhiy Havrylyuk were already doing the patient work of studying the repertoire, performing it and introducing it to other musicians.
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Anna Starushkevych, founder and artistic director of Music Will Save The World, wanted to connect this growing work in Lviv with colleagues in the UK. Working in partnership with John McMunn, Chief Executive of the Academy of Ancient Music, she helped bring together a British Baroque delegation to take part in the Lviv Early Music Festival. The visit took place in November 2025, bringing British and Ukrainian musicians together at the Lviv National Philharmonic.
Women and Men of Baroque
One of the defining early moments of the project was the November 2025 performance of Women and Men of Baroque at the Lviv National Philharmonic.
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More than a concert, it was a meeting point: British and Ukrainian musicians sharing a stage, a repertoire, and a sense of artistic purpose in front of a live audience in Lviv.
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It gave the cultural bridge a visible public form and showed what the project could become when collaboration moved beyond conversation and into music-making itself.
How the project grew
The November visit opened a working relationship: musicians could meet, play together and begin to understand what was needed next. Open rehearsals gave interested students an opportunity to experience historical performance at close hand, while visiting British musicians Pavlo Beznosiuk, Petra Hajduchová and Emily Ashton gave masterclasses to Lviv musicians taking their first steps in Baroque performance. The return journey in summer 2026 took that relationship a step further.
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The Lviv Early Music Foundation, a new organisation devoted to historical performance, now provides a home for this next stage of the work. Its purpose is to help Ukrainian musicians develop their skills, make music together and stay connected with colleagues beyond Ukraine.
The Viols Project
With the support of the Viola da Gamba Society, Emily Ashton found the instruments and checked them carefully before the journey. John McMunn led the fundraising that helped make the project possible. In July 2026, Anna Starushkevych and John travelled to Lviv with viola da gamba players Emilia Benjamin and Reiko Ichise, and harpsichordist James Johnstone. The five travellers each carried an instrument, crossing the Polish–Ukrainian border on foot before continuing to Lviv.
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There, the consort was given to the Lviv Early Music Foundation — and the instruments were immediately put to use. Emilia and Reiko worked with Lviv musicians, introducing them to the viols and teaching them how to play the instruments, while James gave masterclasses to harpsichord students. Within days of their arrival, the viols were being played by British and Lviv colleagues together.
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For a young early-music community, access to instruments changes what can happen. Players can learn the feel and sound of the music from the inside, rehearse as an ensemble and build experience that cannot be gained from books or videos alone. The viols belong in Lviv now: available to the musicians who are shaping the city’s next chapter of early music.
The UK–Ukraine Cultural Bridge has grown through music made together and through the quieter work that follows: organising a visit, sharing knowledge, raising funds and carrying instruments where they are needed. Its lasting mark in Lviv will be heard over time — in rehearsals, new players and performances still to come — as the city's early-music community develops on its own terms.