{"id":453953,"date":"2026-10-02T04:38:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T04:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/453953\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T04:38:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T04:38:06","slug":"kyiv-symphony-orchestra-and-chorus-brings-ukrainian-music-and-stories-of-war-to-lubbock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/453953\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus brings Ukrainian music and stories of war to Lubbock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; It has been 1,681 days since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and this Sunday, residents in Lubbock can hear directly from women living through the reality of war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus is scheduled to perform at 7 p.m. Sunday at LakeRidge Methodist Church, presenting academic traditional Ukrainian music and serving as cultural ambassadors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.musicmissionkiev.org\/tour\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.musicmissionkiev.org\/tour\">touring group<\/a> consists of 29 Ukrainian women traveling across Texas and the eastern United States this fall. The chorus usually consists of men and women, but the men cannot leave the country because of the war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Greg Kannon, CEO of the faith-based nonprofit Music Mission Kyiv, said the concerts bring both joy and emotion to audiences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cJust getting a lot of responses of, \u2018I don\u2019t know how they can bring that much light and joy in knowing their husbands, their sons, their fathers are willing to sacrifice themselves on behalf of independence,\u2019 which we as Americans might take for granted,\u201d Kannon said. \u201cWe see a lot of smiles, laughter, and we see a lot of tears. The compassion of our American audience having just a glimpse into the daily threats of missiles and bombs in Kiev, and yet seeing how beautifully these ladies represent not just Ukraine, but the music world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mission and aid efforts<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.musicmissionkiev.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.musicmissionkiev.org\/\">Music Mission Kiev<\/a> was established in the early 1990s by founder Roger McMurrin, who brought sacred classical music to Ukraine after 70 years under communist rule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAnd as he began to tell them the biblical stories of where this music comes from, he told them that we\u2019re going to take up an offering to give to the poor,\u201d Kannon said. \u201cAnd they said, Roger, we are the poor. And he said, well, we\u2019re going to find people more poor. And we learned in Ukraine that is widows and orphans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Today, the nonprofit assists widows, orphans, and people internally displaced by the war. Kannon said 14 million people lost their homes when the war began, including 450,000 in Kyiv.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cSo, every day when they go to bed, they don\u2019t know if they will be alive in the morning. It is that personal and present in Kiev,\u201d Kannon said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had one of our pensioners killed three weeks ago in the missile attacks. It was in the news that the science building was hit this week earlier, which is one block from our offices, and the operetta house that some of them sing, and some of their friends\u2019 homes were destroyed this week. And so every morning I wake up not knowing which of our girls is going to be upset because of the news that they\u2019ve received overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Community performance details<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Gershom Garcia, director of worship and music at LakeRidge Methodist Church, said hosting the group offers the community an opportunity to connect with their experiences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cKnowing everything that\u2019s been going on over there with the war, I thought what an opportunity to be, to have this group come to Lubbock to perform for us, to hear their story not only spoken but also sung,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cWhen we consider our faith, God calls us to serve others and to love others and this is a great way for our community to show that support and that love, considering everything that these ladies and their families have been through&#8230; So, we would love to pack this place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The concert is free to attend, though <a href=\"https:\/\/www.musicmissionkiev.org\/sponsor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.musicmissionkiev.org\/sponsor\">donations<\/a> will be collected. Garcia noted that a donor has pledged to match contributions up to $5,000 toward the symphony\u2019s $10,000 goal.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; It has been 1,681 days since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[11350,17005,7990,147643,9399,10760,11349,98057,155959,155958,155963,155965,155964,155966,155962,88434,155961,168,170,169,42103,22702,278,2097,22946,155967,155960,36979,47130,52304,3105,27,19504,155957,27412,155968],"class_list":["post-453953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-aid","tag-brings","tag-brittany-crittenden","tag-chorus","tag-church","tag-cultural","tag-donation","tag-efforts","tag-ensemble","tag-female","tag-folk","tag-gershom-garcia","tag-greg-kannon","tag-humanitarian","tag-kiev","tag-kyiv","tag-lakeridge","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-methodist","tag-mission","tag-music","tag-nonprofit","tag-orchestra","tag-orphans","tag-performs","tag-songs","tag-stories","tag-sunday","tag-symphony","tag-texas","tag-touring","tag-ukrainian","tag-war","tag-widows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}