Dear CCI Friends,
I’ve obviously been silent for the past dozen days. Having just returned from Russia upbeat, I couldn’t seem to ‘get my bearings’ on return home.
I’ve written messages, some finished, some unfinished, but didn’t send any of them. I was concerned whether I’d misunderstood the situation. The horrendously dangerous time was developing but not like I had expected.
Russians and Ukrainians were trying to best one another, each for their own survival … meanwhile the survival of our earth was hanging in the balance. All of this with NATO in the background.
I’ve had 38 years of being in both countries on and off, working with and loving both people. I found my heart breaking from watching the daily news reports and photos about this war. I had to withdraw, meditate and find solace. I could see that sources on both sides were supplying plenty of information, not always good but this time I didn’t have the energy to get into the fray.
I’m still sitting in the crosscurrents with this grief. This is too personal and I know and feel too much. Usually I think I can make a difference in difficult situations. This time I know that nothing I can say or do will make any difference at all. Hopefully others will fill this space and bring solutions.
Countless times in these past days, I’ve turned to the world’s great music for solace. It seems to identify with and address the ache-in-the-soul when I have no solutions.
The music that most captures for me the horror existing between Russia and Ukraine today is Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto #2. It doesn’t take sides, it simply reveals the pain, the penetrating angst, and also the potential for redemption. Russia’s amazing young prodigy, Alexander Malofeev was about sixteen when this recording took place. He is Moscow’s latest gift to the world of great music, having been on the piano since age five. Malofeev is now performing in top halls all across the world.
Both Russians and Ukrainians know this Concerto by heart. I’m quite sure both Putin and Zelensky have these sounds in their memory banks. Every USSR school child was continuously exposed to great music, and this piece is one of the most beloved of them all.
I hope you will watch the link below. It’s relevance for today’s pain in Ukraine and Russia feels applicable. Hopefully the sound of resurrection at the end will lift our spirits as we go through these coming days.
More to follow soon,
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 2 – Alexander Malofeev, Russian prodigy with Conductor Kristin Jaffe and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic.
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 2 – Alexander Malofeev – Baltic Sea Philharmonic
Ps: You may want to skip to minutes 25 through 36. The truly magnificent parts are repeated again in the last ten to twelve minutes. Listen with earphones if possible.