Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) – one of the outstanding representatives of world musical art of the 20th century. In the work of this brilliant composer, Slavic culture was inseparably united with European culture. The world public knows him as a Russian composer, and probably only specialists are aware of his spiritual ties with Ukraine. It is interesting that for a certain period of his life Igor Stravinsky spent in Volyn, in Ustyluh. And it was while resting in Volyn that he wrote his world-famous ballets "The Firebird," "Petrushka," "The Rite of Spring" and the opera "The Nightingale."
To date, the question of "Stravinsky and Ukraine" has been practically unstudied. In 1994, an international festival was held in Lutsk for the first time, whose program included not only concerts but also a scholarly conference. In fact, during the work of the conference, perhaps for the first time in Ukraine, the question of Igor Stravinsky's spiritual connection with Ukrainian culture was examined. During the first international festival, a bust of the composer was unveiled in Ustyluh (sculptor O. Baidukov). Also in the program, concerts were given by the chamber orchestra "Camerata" (Kyiv, artistic director M. Skoryk), the choir "Oranta" (Lutsk, artistic director V. Moisiuk), and the chamber orchestra of the Lviv State Musical Institute named after Lysenko (now – Lviv Music Academy) (artistic director M. Skoryk). Given the success, it was planned to hold such a music festival annually. Unfortunately, a lack of funds did not allow these plans to become reality. However, in Lutsk Stravinsky was not forgotten: the Volyn Regional Philharmonic annually on the composer's birthday held classical music concerts at which the artist's works were performed.
Circumstances turned out such that the II music festival could only be organized 11 years later. As noted at a thematic press conference in the press club "Lutsk European" by the director of the Volyn Regional Philharmonic, Serhii Yefimenko, the reasons for not holding it were banal and standard – the absence of funds. Vasyl Voron, as the author of the idea of holding such a festival, spoke about the history of the emergence of this artistic event. The guest from Lviv, Nataliia Shvets, professor of the Department of Music History of the Lviv Music Academy named after Mykola Lysenko, dwelt in more detail on the figure of Igor Stravinsky as a composer of world significance, and also explained what the value of the artist's figure is both for world musical art in general and for Ukrainian in particular.
Today, June 15, is the first day of the program, and the gala closing of the festival will take place on June 17. As at the first festival, the program of the second will include both concert performances and the holding of a scholarly-practical conference with the participation of leading art scholars of the city of Lutsk and the Lviv Music Academy named after Mykola Lysenko. The main questions that will be considered at the conference are the following: problems of studying the sources of the formation of Stravinsky's personality and creativity connected with Ukrainian culture, identification of the influence of Volyn folklore on the musical language of the composer's early works, problems of analyzing the integration processes of assimilation and processing of world achievements of musical art, including Ukrainian, in the composer's creative heritage.