Alisha Ard and Dr. Daniel Bachelder, Music
Recently celebrating the ten-year anniversary of its independence, Ukraine is a country that for those ten years has been plagued with the need for drastic social and economic reform. The people are desperate for the freedoms a word like “independence” promises, but the opportunities just don’t seem to exist for many. Discouragement sets in followed shortly by apathy, and soon they are faced with a close relative of the chicken and the egg conundrum: do people lack ambition because there are no opportunities, or are there no opportunities because the people lack ambition. While I do not offer an answer to this riddle, I did feel a responsibility as a fellow struggling human being to try and devise a solution to the situation, no matter how small of a result my efforts might yield.
As a trombone performance major my own frustrations have helped me learn valuable lessons regarding the importance of self-confidence. I have learned that without self-confidence a musician can’t perform successfully, and that such self-confidence cannot spring from any other source than the well that is inside each individual. Understanding this made me more successful, and so I hypothesized that these theories could be a solution to the situation of despair that confused me in Ukraine. If the citizens of that nation, or any nation, realized that the confidence to shape their country lied within them, they would find it to be one of the greatest tools necessary for changing their lives. But such a realization is unique to each person, and so I concluded that the best way I could convey understanding of these ideas was through the medium through which I myself reached them. I set out to play my trombone for the people of Ukraine.
One does not simply hop on an airplane, trombone in hand, and land in a foreign country ready to play. I owe most of my project’s success to the diligent efforts of Alla Shushkevitch and her husband. Friends referred me to them due to the fact that Alla was an accomplished amateur pianist. Through our emails it was agreed that she would accompany me, and her husband would assist in scheduling the dates and places of the recitals. I mailed Alla photocopies of my pieces, and when she determined that several of them were too difficult for her ability level, she took it upon herself to recruit acquaintances from the local music school, and a young accomplished music student named Yulya Prudenko from the next county who was also known to her. Recitals were scheduled for the 26th, 27th and 28th of April in the cities of Gorlovka, Donetsk, and Zaporozhe respectively. I arrived in Ukraine April 19th and spent the week preceding the first recital intensively rehearsing with my group of assistants. We met as often as their schedules would permit, and I was aware of the fact that it was still less preparation than I had ever had for such performances.
In spite of the shortness of time each of the performances was a success. That is not to say that they went perfectly. The first hall had serious acoustic problems and an out of tune piano. Several times over the course of all three performances this or the other piece had to be stopped and started over again because someone got lost in their part. But the audience responses were tremendous and overlooked these flaws. I was told by not a few that it was the best musical performance they had ever heard. While I did not document reactions and so have no evidence that anyone from the audience was inspired, I have no doubt that it was so. As for my assistants, they all communicated to me how glad they had been to help in putting together these recitals.
I would also like to take time to talk about Yulya’s particular involvement because Yulya turned out to be an individual I can cite as being specifically benefited by my project. Her piano studies, while considered to be at the college level, differ drastically from the type of education I have experienced. She was completing correspondence courses through the institute in Donetsk, which required her to practice all of her pieces on her own with no private instruction. In the place of a private instructor she twice a year takes the eight-hour bus ride to the institute where she performs for a highly critical panel of judges. What surprised me more than the lack of private instruction, however, was that in all her years of study, and in spite of her tremendous talent she had yet to perform in public. She confided in me that she had been praying for such an opportunity when she was contacted in regards to my recitals. I am indeed grateful that I was able to give such a talented individual such experience, and my only regret was that I couldn’t supply more of what she needed: a piano in good condition, a wide variety of music, a mentor, things that I take for granted.
The results of my efforts were not drastic changes and I’m sure they will not go down in the history books, but they were and are visible especially in myself. I took away from the experience a more poignant understanding of the power of a single individual with the will to try. I learned this not from my own involvement, but from the examples of everyone that helped me. I intend to take this understanding with me as I continue in my life trying to make a difference to someone else.