Fifth Ukraine benefit concert to be held Dec. 17

While organizers of the Benefit Concert for Ukraine chamber music series are thrilled with its success, they are dismayed that the concerts are still necessary.

The Dec. 17 concert at Sewickley Methodist Church will be the fifth concert in the series, which began in December 2022 after the war in Ukraine broke out earlier that year.

The concerts are organized by Manitoba, Canada, native, Sewickley resident Cheryl Redmond and Victoria Luperi, principal E-flat clarinet for the Pittsburgh Symphony. The two friends decided to put together the first concert on a very quick timeline.

“The more we talked, the more excited we got,” Redmond said.

The pair rushed to organize the concert in just a couple of months. They were fortunate that finding a venue didn’t pose a challenge.

“The Sewickley Methodist Church said yes when I asked if they would host it,” Redmond said.

They’ve organized the concerts around Ukrainian music with some selections from other composers, including Brahms and Beethoven. But primarily, Redmond aims to celebrate the culture of Ukraine. The musicians come mostly from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, with some special guests making appearances. Starting with the second program, the organizers have also gotten Ukrainian vendors to sell items, and began holding silent auctions with the fourth concert.

This concert will include 10 musicians from the PSO, as well as guest pianist Igor Kraevsky and guest Ukrainian vocalist Mari Frazé-Frazénko.

Concerts also include receptions where the musicians and donors can mingle.

“The fifth concert will serve festive cookies, a cheese and meat platter, and a fruit platter, with coffee and punch, all donated by members of the Sewickley community,” Redmond said. “The concerts have introduced us to the culture of Ukraine through the music, the food, the clothing and jewelry, the culture that Russia is attempting to eradicate.”

Initially, she had concerns that people wouldn’t turn up for the concerts — while donors were incredibly generous with their dollars, she also wanted people to come and hear the music. Her fears were quickly allayed at that first program.

“We walked into the church and it was just nonstop people coming in,” she said.

They ended up raising $24,000 that night.

To this point, altogether, the concert series has raised $87,000. They’re hoping to hit the $100,000 mark with the Dec. 17 performance.

“We have had individual donations from anywhere between $1 to $5,000. Individuals decide the amount that they wish to donate,” Redmond said.

“It’s getting more and more popular, and people who can’t come will send donations,” she added. “People are really tired of this war and want it to end. We can’t do anything about that, but we can make the lives of the people a little bit less stressful, maybe.”

One hundred percent of proceeds have gone, and will continue to go, to help Ukrainians.

Redmond emphasized that they go directly to the people of Ukraine and not through any government sources. For the first few concerts, the donations went to Nova Ukraine and DT Care, an organization based in Moon. This concert will have a new beneficiary, Doctors United for Ukraine, a cohort of Yale doctors who are going to Ukraine to provide necessary medical care and to train doctors who can take that knowledge and use it within the country.

Redmond said that it is important to help in the ways that we can.

“What we can do is raise some money in a small way. … I tell people, don’t worry about what’s happening that you can’t change. Worry about what you can do, think about what you can do to improve the lives of one person, 10 people, a country.”

Despite the success of the benefit concert series, it’s still disappointing to Redmond that it has to continue.

“We had hoped that one would be enough. One concert would be enough and then maybe another concert to help them rebuild.”

Instead, the war continues after nearly four years, and the organizers are committed to continuing to fundraise for the people of Ukraine.

Redmond herself is from the small mining town of Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada. The town contained many immigrants, especially from Iceland and Ukraine. She has several family members and friends of Ukrainian ancestry, so this is a cause close to her heart.

She’s also a musician who has volunteered for years with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, so using music to help the people of Ukraine was a natural fit.

She even received the Friend of Ukraine award from the Ukrainian Cultural and Humanitarian Institute.

“As a result of these concerts, I have been contacted by so many people, so many Ukrainian families, and I’ve been invited to so many different church events and so on,” she said.

The fifth benefit concert for Ukraine will be held at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 17, at Sewickley Methodist Church, 337 Broad St. See all the details at bc4us.org. Learn more about the Doctors United for Ukraine organization at doctorsu4u.org.