Artist Talk and Performance. Vitalii Vyshynskyi, Tetiana Khoroshun

On 29 October 2025, DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and Kyiv Contemporary Music Days present an evening of conversations and new music from Ukraine. Coming from Kyiv, composer Vitalii Vyshynskyi will share his experiences as an artist and music professor in a country at war and his ongoing project about musically re-experiencing childhood. This will be followed by a sound performance tiny music, so tiny by composer Tetiana Khoroshun.    

Vitalii Vyshynskyi invites us to reconnect with our inner child to sustain our vitality and strength in an ever-shifting reality. This can be achieved through the practice of musically re-experiencing childhood — when the space of a musical work becomes a context in which the adult can revisit childhood as a place of memory, of unconditional values, a source of beauty, self-belief, and a renewed sense of direction. How has this experience of childhood been reflected in the history of music? Why did composers turn to childhood themes? What changed in their work as the 20th century saw the boundaries between the worlds of the child and the adult blur — when the childlike increasingly entered the adult sphere, and the adult, in turn, permeated the child’s world? And most importantly, why today, in the context of Europe’s largest land war since 1945, might reflections on childhood carry profound existential significance for adults? These are some of the questions Vyshynskyi’s project explores.

Tetiana Khoroshun’s tiny music, so tiny is dedicated to “all joy and playfulness we lost forever.” The creature comes into the venue, making loud noises as it’s dragging a heavy burden: balloons, toys, instruments, mallets, etc. The creature tries to find a way to play with these things, but it has lost its ability to play. As the ritual goes on, however, and with some outside help, the creature starts to learn, and the heavy things build into beautiful structures. The sound performance will involve audience engagement, a wall of noise, and helium balloons.

Free admission, all welcome.

The event is part of a special program supported by the German Federal Foreign Office for artists and cultural professionals from Ukraine. 

Albert Saprykin, Les Vynogradov