Oksana Lyniv on Music, War, and Cultural Power

One of the world’s leading conductors, Ukrainian maestro Oksana Lyniv speaks to Kyiv Post about gender barriers in classical music, the realities of cultural politics during Russia’s war against Ukraine, and how Ukrainian music can move from the margins into the global classical canon. This interview is published in two parts in the Ukrainian edition. You can read it in the original Ukrainian here and here.

Kyiv Post: Over more than 20 years of an international career, you have repeatedly been the first woman to hold positions previously occupied only by men. You were the first female conductor in the history of the Bayreuth Festival and the first female music director in the history of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, serving as direttrice musicale. When did these personal achievements turn into a broader mission for you?

Oksana Lyniv: The profession of conducting remains one of the last male bastions in classical music. Unlike other musical fields, where women have long occupied leading roles, conducting is changing very slowly. That is why every appearance of a woman conductor attracts disproportionate attention – both positive and critical.

I am fully aware that these debuts open doors for the next generations and gradually change the very structure of the profession.

This year, I was invited to serve on the jury of the La Maestra International Conducting Competition in Paris. When I was a student, competitions like this were simply unthinkable. We constantly had to fight stereotypes that a woman could never succeed as a conductor. La Maestra does not merely create visibility – it builds real infrastructure: mentorship, contracts, long-term support. This genuinely changes the rules of the game.

Your 2021 debut at the Bayreuth Festival (Bayreuther Festspiele) was historic. For the first time in its history, a woman’s portrait – yours – appeared among 92 male conductors in the festival gallery. What does Bayreuth mean to you today?

Bayreuth is a unique place, with its own acoustics, traditions, and an extremely demanding audience. In the 145-year history of the festival, I became the first woman to conduct a premiere opening the season. My debut attracted enormous media attention – from Ukrainian outlets to The New York Times. To this day, wherever I perform, Bayreuth is listed at the very beginning of my biography.

However, at the Wagner Festival [Bayreuth Festival], where productions traditionally run for several consecutive years, what matters is not only the premiere but continuity. Many conductors appear in the gallery with only a single year listed beneath their portrait – meaning their productions did not meet expectations and were not continued. Incidentally, this was also the case for Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, whose premiere was booed.

That is why it is particularly important to me that in 2026 I will return to Bayreuth for the fifth consecutive year, this time during the festival’s 150th anniversary season. Only four conductors worldwide have been granted this honor. Coming for a fifth season to Bayreuth allows me to build a much deeper connection with the Bayreuth Orchestra and its unique tradition.

How has Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed your understanding of the role of a Ukrainian artist on the international stage?

Each year, I perform in dozens of countries, and every concert is an opportunity to speak about Ukraine through art. My schedule has become more intense: I have to manage numerous activities and benefit projects for Ukraine, but also important and challenging debuts on the world’s major stages. For example, I am the first Ukrainian conductor in history to appear at the Metropolitan Opera and to work with the renowned Vienna Philharmonic. Wherever I go, I feel a special responsibility because of my origin.

Did the expectation that the war would open doors for Ukrainians on the world’s major stages come true?

No. Alongside the initial wave of interest, Russian cultural propaganda and lobbying also intensified. Today, Ukrainian ensembles must fight for every project and every source of funding. There are no privileges – only fierce competition.

A clear example is the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (YSOU), which I founded in 2016. It is the only project of its kind in the country for young musicians, and after the start of the full-scale war, it also became a platform to support musically gifted Ukrainian youth. In 2022, when Ukraine dominated global headlines, we received many invitations and offers of support. Today, the situation is radically different. We must fight for every performance, submit applications ourselves, and constantly seek funding to cover education and internships for young musicians. The orchestra’s survival depends entirely on our own activity, responsibility, and year-round investment.

In 2022, Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy issued an official position calling for a complete halt to cultural dialogue with the aggressor – including with cultural figures who openly support the Putin-backed war or who avoid taking a clear stance by refusing to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  Ukraine’s culture minister has called on the country’s Western allies to boycott Russian culture, urging a halt to performances of the music of Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers until the end of the war. Your criticism of “canceling” Russian culture has sparked debate. Why do you believe this strategy does not work?

Categorical calls to cancel Russian works that have long been part of the global musical canon often provoke alienation and distrust among international audiences. Paradoxically, over the past few years, canceling rhetoric has triggered a renewed surge of performances of Russian repertoire worldwide.

This reflects a particular Western mentality: such reactions are a way of defending cultural autonomy and artistic preferences from political pressure.

What alternative approach do you propose?

Sooner or later, we must accept that we cannot dictate the rules of cultural life in another country, with someone else’s funding, amid a global crisis. Our path must be soft power and diplomacy.

Through professional excellence, we can earn trust and create high-quality artistic products. Through performers who already have international audiences, we can introduce works by Ukrainian composers and gradually familiarize the world with our culture.

My experience shows that replacing a Russian work is difficult – but adding a Ukrainian one to a program is entirely possible.

For example, Bohdana Frolyak’s “Let There Be Light” will soon be performed in Paris – a moment charged with particular emotional weight. Rehearsals with French musicians took place on Jan. 9, just after another terrifying night of Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine. In this fragile moment, music born from a Ukrainian composer’s longing for inner light resonated powerfully with the performers, awakening deep empathy and shared emotion. The piece became more than a score – a quiet yet insistent reminder of hope, dignity, and humanity in the face of war.

Ukrainian music regularly appears in your programs. How do you select these works?

Foreign audiences lack emotional and historical context regarding Ukraine. That is why I often pair Ukrainian works with well-known classical repertoire or contemporary themes of universal relevance.

My programs include music by Bortniansky, Glière, Liatoshynsky, Barvinsky, Sylvestrov, Stankovych, Orkin, Frolyak, Laniuk, Rezach, Sehin, Almashi, Polyova, Shalygin, Kolomiiets, and others. These composers represent diverse musical languages and stylistic directions.

When designing programs, I consider the country, orchestra, venue, and audience. Over the course of a season, I aim to present a broad spectrum of Ukrainian music, both historical and contemporary. Attentive listeners can discover its diversity through these programs.

Works written during the war often receive a particularly strong response.

Yes. For example, at my symphonic debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the United States in late January 2026, the program will include Antonín Dvořák’s symphonic poem “The Golden Spinning Wheel,” based on an old Czech fairy tale. In the story, an evil stepmother murders her stepdaughter for personal gain, and the voice of the murdered girl reveals the truth through a spinning wheel.

The concert will open with “Five Interrupted Lullabies” by Yevhen Orkin, dedicated to the memory of five children killed in Odesa during a Russian missile strike on a residential building in March 2024. The score includes the children’s names and ages. When I explain this to musicians during rehearsals, it is deeply shocking.

Such music profoundly affects performers and audiences alike. In this program, a fairy tale mirrors the terrifying reality of today, conveying the truth about the war in Ukraine. Music can reopen empathy. I have seen how such concerts change perceptions of Ukraine and help to build a bridge for dialogue. 

You have spoken about your dream of staging a contemporary Ukrainian opera on a major world stage. What is the main obstacle?

Opera involves multi-million-dollar budgets and enormous financial risk. Opera houses fear empty seats and losses. That is why the Metropolitan Opera’s initiative to commission a work by Ukrainian composer Maksym Kolomiiets is so significant. At the request of Met Opera General Manager Peter Gelb, Kolomiiets wrote “Mothers of Kherson,” an opera about the deportation of Ukrainian children. This project has the potential to change attitudes across the international operatic world.

What do you see as the main strategic challenge for Ukrainian culture today?

We need sustainability and systemic presence. Not one-time gestures of solidarity, but continuous integration into the global cultural context. Only then will Ukrainian culture cease to be an exception and become part of the world tradition. I dream of living to see a time when Ukrainian culture breaks free from its marginal status and takes its rightful place alongside other cultures.