Ukraine: death of a renowned conductor on the Donbass front

Ukrainian conductor Kostiantyn Starovytskyi was killed at the front on March 29, 2023. © Facebook account of the Kiev Opera

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In Ukraine, the Ministry of Culture announced the death on the Donbass front of a renowned conductor from Kiev: Kostiantyn Starovytskyi had joined the Ukrainian armed forces in the first days of the Russian invasion. He was reportedly killed on Wednesday, April 5, during Russian bombing in the Kramatorsk region. For more than a year, many actors of cultural life have dropped their instruments, to go fighting, paying a heavy price.

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With our correspondent in Kiev, Stéphane Siohan

Kostiantyn Starovytskyi was 40 years old, married, and the father of a little girl. A bassoon player, he conducted the National Academic Brass Orchestra of Ukraine, and had the opportunity to work as a conductor in the National Opera of Ukraine, unanimously respected for his work in arranging Rossini's operas.

Automatic weapon

For a year, Kostiantyn Starovytskyi had swapped the bassoon for the automatic weapon, and had fought first in the Kiev region, then that of Kharkiv, before serving in the Donbass. Since February 2014, a large number of people from the world of culture, literature, music and cinema have abandoned their previous lives to fight with weapons in hand.

One of many

The best known of them, internationally, is undoubtedly the director Oleg Sentsov, but many Ukrainian personalities are now fighting on the front. A number of them have already perished, such as the best Ukrainian film editor, Viktor Onyshko, killed in Soledar on 30 December. This Saturday morning, the National Guard also announced the death of Anton Derbilov, 43, hit by shrapnel near Kreminna, he was a renowned sculptor and musician.

► Read also: Ukraine: the war has caused billions of euros of destruction of heritage, according to Unesco

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  • Ukraine
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