The Ukrainian Veterans’ Foundation has launched a project of veterans’ songs – ArtFront. The first composition was the song “Volya”, dedicated to the Independence Day of Ukraine.
It was performed in a duet by Oleg Skrypka and senior soldier of the National Guard of Ukraine Oleg Bondar, nicknamed “Musician”. Oleg Bondar is the author of the words and music, and the song was produced by Oleg Skrypka.
The project, launched by the Ukrainian Veterans’ Foundation, is designed to popularize a new layer of modern Ukrainian music, namely, songs born during the war and authors of a new generation – veterans and military personnel. The producer is Oleg Skrypka, a musician, producer, conductor of the first Ukrainian rock band “Vopli Vidoplyasova”, as well as the founder of the “Dreamland” (Країна мрій) festival.
“Over the past eight years, Ukrainian music has been enriched with unique songs created by military personnel and war veterans. These special materials are literally written under bullets and fragments of shells, in dugouts and trenches. This is a very symbolic and patriotic phenomenon without pathos. That is why the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation undertook to popularize this layer. After all, it’s not just about music, it’s about opportunities. Ukrainian veterans, returning from the war, should not become a lost generation, but should immediately have opportunities to realize their potential. Including a creative one,” says Executive Director of the Foundation Nataliya Kalmykova.
“ArtFront” should become a full-fledged collection of songs that were written at the front from 2014 to the present. The authors of the songs are front-line soldiers who will perform them in a duet with famous singers. The songs will be recorded in professional studios, and music videos will be shot for some songs.
“The Ukrainian patriotic song should sound everywhere and in our hearts. The song “Volya” is the first song from the collection. It is symbolic and represents the state where we are and how we are moving towards victory,” says producer Oleg Skrypka.
The idea of the project belongs to the first deputy of the Executive Director of the Foundation, Ruslana Velychko-Trofinyuk.
“Society has always had an order of magnitude higher trust in the military than in veterans. This is related to the psychology of people. Military – protection, veteran – benefits, payments from the state, post-traumatic syndrome, etc. Now there was a stalemate, when the veterans once again came to the defense of the country. But after receiving sociological data made by the Ukrainian Veterans’ Foundation together with the Sociological Group “Rating” on August 6-7, 2022 regarding society’s understanding of the image of veterans, the results turned out to be not so encouraging. I had the idea to popularise the image of a veteran through such projects. In the end, to prove to people that those who protect us and those who returned are the same people. And these people often have limitless undiscovered talents in themselves, – explains Velychko-Trifonyuk – it should be duets with popular singers that support this talent and give an opportunity to further reveal the creative potential of our young veterans. My dream is that this project will produce works of such a popular level that they will be sung in karaoke, and young people will dance to this music at discos.”
