Sed Contra Ensemble

Ensembles

Sed Contra Ensemble was founded in 2013 by Serhii Vilka, Vitalii Kyianytsia, and Andrii Merkhel, a group of young composers from Kyiv. The ensemble includes leading soloists and the winners of numerous international competitions. Sed Contra Ensemble’s repertoire focuses on chamber music from the early twentieth century to the present, music by young composers, electroacoustic music, and new musical improvisation, as well as interdisciplinary artistic projects.

Sed Contra Ensemble is always on the line-up for major festivals in Ukraine such as GogolFest (Kyiv), Contrasts (Lviv), Kyiv Contemporary Music Days, Two Days and Two Nights of New Music (Odesa), Kyiv Music Fest, Lviv Hindemith Fest, Porto Franko (Ivano-Frankivsk), Premieres of the Season (Kyiv), FreeFest (Kyiv), as well as Poznan Music Spring and Ukrainian Spring in Poland.

The ensemble participated in international events such as The Interaction of Dance and Music, ParaNoise, and EM-Visia, as well as in Alliance 22, and Donkult. Since 2015, Sed Contra Ensemble has collaborated with the Pechersk New Theater in Kyiv and is involved in interdisciplinary projects with leading young artists. Their most important theater performances have been Hesse. Parables as well as Sound. Voice. Silence with the Laboratory of Music and Theater. The ensemble’s creative collaborations are on the border of visual, theatrical and musical arts, and its members also give electroacoustic performances.

International performances and experience:

2023 — Stimmen, festival of music in Lörrach, Germany
2017 — Poznan Musical Spring, festival of contemporary music, Poland
2016 — Ukrainian Spring, festival of culture in Poznan, Poland

International collaboration:

2023 — Die Psalmen Sprechen, concert performance, Lörrach / Poznan, under the auspices of the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation
2018–2020 — Envision Sound, international educational program for composers, Kyiv
2019 — Hesse. Parables, literary and electroacoustic performance, Kyiv, under the auspices of the Goethe-Institut in Ukraine
2018 — Mauricio Kagel. Instrumental Theater, concert performance (together with the Pechersk New Theater), Kyiv, under the auspices of the Goethe-Institut Ukraine
2016 — “Polish School of Composition of the Post-war Period,” concert-lecture, Kyiv, under the auspices of the Polish Institute in Kyiv
2015 — Hesse. Parables, theatrical and musical performance, together with the Pechersk New Theater, under the auspices of the Swiss Embassy in Ukraine, Kyiv and Odesa