BEETHOVEN · KOLOMIIETS / Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Keri-Lynn Wilson | Deutsche Grammophon

Conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson and the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra present their live performance of both Beethoven’s iconic Symphony No. 5 and Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets Suite from The Mothers of Kherson. 

The release marks the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, after which the UFO was created by Wilson as a cultural riposte. It brings together the finest Ukrainian musicians from ensembles across the country, Ukrainian musicians who had become refugees abroad following the invasion and Ukrainian members of European orchestras. The recording was captured live in Vilnius, Lithuania during the orchestra’s 2025 Resilience tour and is dedicated to the Ukrainian people and their struggle. 

The towering musical masterpiece of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was written amid the turmoil of war and personal crisis and has been a cultural touchstone for the journey from darkness into light and of triumph over adversity. As orchestra founder and conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson points out, “our four summer tours have been in support of Ukraine’s right to be free. Those iconic opening four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, amongst many other things, came to symbolize allied resistance to Naziism during the Second World War. Let them now be a symbol to the world of our resistance today.”