Almost a real swing (a side strike from a long distance in boxing) was received by those listeners of the concert "Polish and Ukrainian Contemporary Music" that took place in Lutsk on May 4, who are not familiar with the subtleties of contemporary music. They probably learned for the first time that the piano is not only a keyboard but also a percussion instrument. But, seriously speaking, thanks to composer and conductor Volodymyr Runchak, artistic director of the chamber ensemble "New Music in Ukraine" and its tireless promoter, in the Year of Poland in Ukraine, Lutsk residents and guests of the city became acquainted with contemporary Polish and Ukrainian music performed by Inna Halatenko (soprano), Roman Riepka (piano), Andrii Domin (clarinet), Dmytro Hlushchenko (cello) and other members of the chamber ensemble. Works were performed by composers known not only in their homeland but also in the world: Józef Koffler (1896-1944), Wojciech Kilar (1932), Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994), Kazimierz Serocki (1922-1981) — Poland, and Valentyn Sylvestrov (1937) and Volodymyr Runchak (1960) — Ukraine. A native of Lviv, W. Kilar studied in Katowice and Paris, was recognized with awards from the Lili Boulanger Foundation in Boston (1960), the A. Jurzykowski Foundation in New York (1984), was fascinated by "minimal music"; among his most outstanding works: KRESANY (1974), SIWA MGLA (1979), ORAWA (1986). His three preludes for piano, created at the age of 19, were performed at the concert by Roman Riepka. Witold Lutosławski studied composition at the Warsaw Conservatory and studied mathematics at the University of Warsaw. Just like the Hungarian Béla Bartók and the native of Yelysavethrad (now Kirovohrad) Karol Szymanowski, he turned to folklore and wrote works to poems by French surrealist poets; among the significant scores of the 1980s of the 20th century — the Third Symphony and the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Many of his works were written specifically for world-renowned performers, including Mstyslav Rostropovich, H. Holliger, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and others. The concert included one of the composer's early works — "Bucolics" for viola and cello. The concert program corresponds to the name of the ensemble, since the music of Polish composers is evidently unfamiliar to ordinary Lutsk residents (known perhaps only in recordings) and therefore is new. At the same time, unlike Valentyn Sylvestrov — an avant-gardist and classic, laureate of the S. Koussevitzky Prize (USA), the International Competition of Young Composers Gaudeamus (Netherlands), and known in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, the USA — and his colleague half his age, a graduate of Lutsk Music School No. 1, Volodymyr Runchak, whose works — Three Songs (to poems by Valentyn Aihi) for soprano and piano; Antisonatas No. 28, No. 29, No. 53 for piano and solo clarinet — "appeared in 2003," the Polish music heard is hardly contemporary. Whereas the most contemporary Polish work that sounded at the concert — "Swinging music" for chamber ensemble (by Kazimierz Serocki) — dates from 1970. However, genuine works of art are always contemporary. "Swinging music," one of the most popular works, according to V. Runchak (the work that concluded the concert), the musicians, yielding to applause, performed twice. The concert was dedicated to the day of the Polish Constitution, adopted on May 3, 1791. But one can say that the concert was also dedicated to the bright memory of Józef Koffler, a student of Arnold Schoenberg and the first Polish composer to use the dodecaphonic technique, a teacher at the Lviv Conservatory, who perished 60 years ago at the hands of the Hitlerite occupiers, and to the bright memory of all those who perished in World War II. Therefore it is entirely natural that the concert opened with J. Koffler's work — "Miłość", a cantata for soprano, clarinet, viola and cello to the text of the Hymn to Love from the First Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 13, where penetrating music combines with such wonderful words: "Love suffers long, love is kind, does not envy, love does not boast, is not puffed up, ... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things!" And although Iryna Halatenko (soprano) sang in Polish, there were no problems with understanding, because, as the Deputy Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Lutsk, Andrzej Paradowski, said in his introductory remarks: "Music, like art, needs no translation." The concert took place with the assistance of Mr. Wojciech Gałązka, Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Lutsk, and Mr. Danylo Poshtaruk, director of the Volyn Puppet Theater, Honored Artist of Ukraine. The hall was dominated by young people, who sincerely and openly responded to the works they considered their own, that is, contemporary to themselves. One can hope that the next project of the Polish Institute in Kyiv, within the concert series "New Music in Ukraine" — a concert of the chamber orchestra of the Rivne Philharmonic in Lutsk on June 8 — will be just as interesting, informative, and emotionally rich, depending on which works by W. Lutosławski, H. Górecki, V. Runchak and W. Kilar will be performed and how the concert program will be composed.