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The orchestra’s summer tours have taken in some of the most prestigious venues across Europe and the United States, such as the BBC Proms and the Barbican in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Lincoln Center in New York City, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. This year’s tour sees them perform at some of the great cathedrals and concert halls on both sides of the Atlantic as well as a special concert in the Polish shipyard that was instrumental in the birth of the Solidarity movement. The UFO is proud to have showcased contemporary Ukrainian composers alongside the greats of the wider European musical tradition and has enjoyed a rapturous and emotional public response, critical acclaim, and unprecedented media attention for an artistic venture of this kind. 

The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra’s recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, conducted by Maestro Wilson, was released by Deutsche Grammophon to commemorate the second anniversary of the invasion. The orchestra will embark on its Beethoven Ninth Freedom Tour of leading cities this summer.

Ms. Wilson’s career as a conductor of opera and symphonic music includes many of the world’s leading opera houses and symphony orchestras. Among the opera companies she has conducted most recently are the Royal Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, the Paris Opera, and the Deutsche Opera Berlin. Amongst the orchestras she has most recently led are the NHK Symphony, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and the Bruckner Orchestra of Linz.

Over a rich and varied career, Ms. Wilson has conducted, amongst many other orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Wiener Kammerorchester, the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma, the Russian National Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonia, the RAI Symphony Orchestra, the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Toronto Symphony, and l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal.

Ms. Wilson’s career operatic highlights include Carmen and La Traviata at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and La Traviata at the Wiener Staatsoper, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Metropolitan Opera, Salome at Houston Grand Opera La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the BayerischeStaatsoper, Madama Butterfly at the Deutsche Oper, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and La Traviata at the OpernhausZürich, Don Carlo, Iolanta, Manon Lescaut, Carmen, Tosca, and La traviata at the Bolshoi Theatre and the Royal Opera House, Jenufa, La Fanciulla del West and Aïda at the English National Opera, Rigoletto at the Norwegian National Opera, Der Fliegende Holländer, Carmina Burana, Boris Godunov, and Carmen at the Polish National Opera, Faust at the Washington National Opera, and Madama Butterfly at the Canadian Opera Company.

After graduation, he continued his studies in the U.K. at the London Royal College of Music studying under Professor Felix Andrievsky (1994–1999) and later in Germany (Cologne) under outstanding contemporary violinist Victor Tretyakov. He regularly performed and won various awards, the most important of which was the award of the most prestigious contemporary competition, the Georg Kulenkampff International Violin Competition (Cologne, 1993), where he became the second prize winner. While living in Europe he often visited his native city Lviv, performing with the Lviv Symphony Orchestra (conducted by R. Symovych, J. Yuzyuk, P. Sondetskis, T. Kucher, and others) and Lviv Virtuosos led by S. Burko.

Since 2004, Komonko has lived in South Korea. He’s worked as a concertmaster of various orchestras, including the Seoul Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed as a soloist and ensemble player, and has recorded for radio and television. His repertoire includes works by composers of different epochs and styles, including Ukrainian composers. Since 2014, Mark Komonko has been working as a soloist of the Lviv Philharmonic.

Further highlights include the title role in Emma Dante's new production of Rusalka at La Scala in Milan, where she had given her house debut as Diana in Cavalli's La Calisto, Ghita in Zemlinski's Der Zwerg at the George Enescu Festival in Budapest, her Salzburg Festival debut as Marzelline (Fidelio) alongside Jonas Kaufmann and Adrianne Pieczonka, and the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Semperoper Dresden, a role she had previously sung also in Vienna, Munich, Hamburg, and Moscow.

Olga Bezsmertna was a member of the ensemble at the Vienna State Opera, where she has sung numerous important roles, including Fiordiligi (Cosí fan tutte), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Liù (Turandot), Mimí (La Bohème), Mélisande (Pélleas et Mélisande), Tatjana (Eugene Onegin), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), and Alice Ford (Falstaff).

She regularly works with renowned conductors such as Franz Welser-Möst, Adam Fischer, Alain Altinoglu, James Conlon, and Christian Thielemann and stage directors such as Marco Arturo Marelli, Claus Guth, Sven-Eric Bechtholf, and Adrian Noble.

In 2024, Olga Bezsmertna was awarded the prestigious Franco Abbiati Prize, the annual award of the Association of Italian Music Critics, in the category “Best Female Singer."

Nataliia was a member of the International Opera Studio OperAvenir at Theater Basel from 2021–2023, where she sang Rosina in Nikolaus Habjan’s production of Il barbiere di Siviglia, conducted by Hélio Vida, and Maddalena in Vincent Huguet’s production of Rigoletto under Michele Spotti. Other highlights during her time at Theater Basel include Thibault in Don Carlos, Ein Page der Herodias in Herbert Fritsch’s production of Salome, conducted by Clemens Heil, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. In the summer of 2023, Nataliia was a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Scholarship Foundation of the Bayreuth Festival.

In the summer of 2022, she made her debut in the Konzerthaus Berlin under the baton of Oksana Lyniv. That year she also sang the mezzo-soprano solo in Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regio Opera Festival in Torino under Andriy Yurkevych. In December 2021 and 2022, Nataliia sang concerts with the Sinfonieorchester Basel in the Stadtcasino Basel under John Fiore and Nill Venditti. Between 2018–2021, she was a participant of The Opera Academy Young Talent Development Programme of the Teatr Wielki, as part of the Polish National Opera in Warsaw. There she worked with Olga Pasichnyk, Eytan Pessen, Matthias Rexroth, Izabela Kłosińska, Hedwig Fassbender, René Massis, Mariusz Kwiecień, Tomasz Konieczny, Ewa Zeuner, Thomas Lausmann, Lech Napierała, and Florence Daguerre de Hureaux.

In the 2019–2020 season she made her debut as Rosina in Krakow Opera under the baton of Tomasz Tokarczyk, followed by her Polish National Opera debut as Sister in Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel under Kazushi Ono, as well as Eduige in Rodelinda at the Polish Royal Opera under Krzysztof Garstka. In 2020 at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, Nataliia sang Cloridoro and Proserpina in L’empio punito by Melani in the production of Silvia Paoli under Mariangiola Martello. In December 2020, she sang the New Year’s Eve Gala under Patrick Fournillier at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw. In May 2019, she made her debut in the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio with the Polish Radio Orchestra in Warsaw under the baton of Michał Klauza. In 2019, Nataliia participated in the Exzellenz Labor Oper Course. She gave her operatic debut on the stage of the Lviv National Opera in April 2015 as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. She was a finalist at the 10th International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti. From February to July 2018, she was a Fellow of the Gaude Polonia Program of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland. In the 2016–2017 season, she was a soloist at the Kyiv National Academic Operetta Theatre. She graduated from the Lviv National Music Academy. In 2014, Nataliia participated in a masterclass with Montserrat Caballé. She has been mentored in her singing by Olga Pasichnyk since 2017.

He recently returned to National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin (Verdi’s Requiem), appeared at Orquestra Synfonica Sao Paolo (Faust in Damnation of Faust), Deutsche Oper Berlin (debut as Florestan in Fidelio), Israeli Opera Tel Aviv (Pincerton in Madama Butterfly and Young Gypsy in Aleko), and National Theater Prague (Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly).

Additionally, Dytiuk debuted at Teatro Regio in Torino (Rodolfo in La boheme), appeared at Deutsche Oper Berlin (debut as Arrigo in I vespri siciliani), Teatro Verdi in Salerno (both Duca in Rigoletto and Nemorino in Elisir d’Amore), Estonian National Opera in Tallinn (Romeo in Romeo et Giuliette and Alfredo in Traviata)

In the 2019–2020 season, he made house debuts at two Italian theaters: Teatro Verdi in Salerno (Rodolfo in La bohème) and Teatro Filarmonico in Verona (Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly).

In the 2018–2019 season, he made a house debut at Palau de les Arts in Valenlcia (Vaudemont in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta) and at Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv in Un ballo in maschera (Riccardo/Gustav III – conductor Daniel Oren).

During previous seasons, he debuted with a great success at Deutsche Oper Berlin (Faust) and at Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv (Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly) among others.

Highlights of the previous seasons also include very successful house debuts at Houston Grand Opera as Pere Germont in La Traviata, Opera Australia as the title role in Don Giovanni, Chicago Lyric Opera as Escamillo in Carmen, and Tomsky in Pique Dame at the Grange Festival.

Past performances include his house and role debut at the Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona as Sir Riccardo Forth in I puritani alongside Javier.

TWC was the first major Washington area chorus to be founded independent of a church or college. In 1961, Hugh Hayward, a medical doctor and classically trained musician, founded the Oratorio Society of Montgomery County, which became known as the Oratorio Society of Washington, and is now celebrated under the name of The Washington Chorus. In 1971, Robert Shafer succeeded Hayward as music director, leading the chorus for more than three decades with great distinction, including two Grammy^® Awards. From 2008–2017, Julian Wachner led the organization with education and innovation at the forefront of his programs. Christopher Bell brought unparalleled attention to precision and clarity to the ensemble with his trademark flair during his tenure as Artistic Director from 2017 to 2020. The Chorus' fifth Artistic Director Eugene Rogers is widely regarded as one of the most acclaimed next-generation conductors and musical thought leaders today working at the intersection of classical music and social change.

TWC’s commitment to the greater Washington community is evidenced by its Connections Programs, including the Side-by-Side high school program and the DC Honor Chorus in partnership with DC Public Schools.

Chorus America, the national association for choruses, has honored The Washington Chorus with the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the ASCAP Alice Parker Award, which recognizes a chorus programming significant, recently-composed music that expands the mission of the chorus and challenges audiences in new ways. Other awards include the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for the live-performance recording of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem and a 1996 Grammy Award for John Corigliano’s Of Rage and Remembrance with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin.

TWC has appeared at the invitation of leading orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. TWC is proud to have sung with the NSO in more than 300 performances, under the direction of many of the world’s greatest conductors, including Gianandrea Noseda, Christoph Eschenbach, Leonard Slatkin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Neville Marriner, Kent Nagano, Marin Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Andrew Davis, and many others.

TWC has sung for numerous prestigious events throughout its history— inaugurations, papal visits, with the Rolling Stones during their 50th anniversary tour, and at the White House in 2013 and 2014 for the President and First Lady.

Ukrainian-American conductor Marika Kuzma, this evening’s chorusmaster, has led ensembles across North America. A professor emerita of the University of California, Berkeley, she led its symphonic choir and chamber chorus for some twenty-five years and guest directed choirs at Dartmouth College (Handel Society), Oklahoma City University, the University of Virginia, and Choeur St-Laurent in Montreal. She also served as chorusmaster to the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Mark Morris Dance Group Oakland Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque, Philharmonia Orchestra of London, Simon Bolivar Orchestra, and was a guest chef de choeur for the Montreal Symphony, collaborating with Joana Carneiro, Gustavo Dudamel, Nicholas McGegan, Ken David Masur, Kent Nagano, and others in repertoire spanning from Rameau to Wagner to John Adams. She has coached and conducted many choirs in Ukrainian music and as a scholar has published articles and recordings on Ukrainian music internationally, including an acclaimed recording of Dmytro Bortniansky’s choral concertos for Naxos Records and a book on Ukrainian Christmas repertoire to be published this summer. Dr. Kuzma’s former students are now leading choirs and orchestras of their own 50 singers.