If it is odd that an American would form a symphony orchestra in Kyiv, a city already endowed with no shortage of cultural institutions, it is stranger still that the newcomer would consider the orchestr a part of his work as a missionary.
Yet that is exactly what Roger McMurrin, conductor of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus since its founding in 1993, has done - and successfully.
In a city with plenty of cultural competition, McMurrin's 160-member orchestra and chorus has demonstrated the consistent ability to draw sell-out crowds and to travel the world.
Despite the success of his orchestra - or perhaps because of it - McMurrin has his sights set on even more ambitious projects ahead: He wants to build a state-of-the-art 2,000-seat symphony hall in the capital, and he's recently agreed to become conductor of Ukraine's State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra.
Touring traditions
Over the past decade, his Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus has exposed audiences in the United States to Ukrainian history, customs and musical talent. Largely, they have to start from scratch.
"Most often, we find that people don't even know where Ukraine is," McMurrin said. "They think Ukraine is part of Russia."
The group educates its audiences by selling Ukrainian merchandise and recordings of its music before and after concerts. The group also eschews hotels, for the most part arranging to stay in the homes of host families in the cities it visits.
This summer, the group will embark on an ambitious U.S. tour, visiting 40 cities in 60 days. The tour costs nearly $700,000 to produce, of which only about 90 percent of the expenses are recouped by ticket and merchandise sales.
Though a two-month bus tour of the United States sounds grueling, it represents a major payoff for the work the members of the group do during the rest of the year in Kyiv. Each member of the group receives a $20 per diem payment during the road trip, and many receive gifts from people they meet during the tour.
A few, however, see the tour as a way to immigrate to the United States, leaving the group during the tour and staying, illegally. During the first U.S. tour, six of the 125 Ukrainians in the entourage stayed behind. Each year that the orchestra has toured the U.S., a small number - between 1 and 2 percent of the group - has opted to stay.
"I never can tell who will stay," he said. "It's always the last ones I would expect."
He said that he shows group members a letter he received from U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft that warns would-be illegal immigrants that they will be aggressively pursued if they overstay their visas.
Even with the handful of musicians who stay behind, McMurrin says the group's experience is far better than the U.S. government's. He says that 20 percent of the visas granted by the embassy are issued to Ukrainians who overstay.
Banned music
McMurrin said that the group, which is the largest ensemble of its kind in Ukraine to operate without government support, performs music that in many cases was not permitted or given little attention during the Soviet era.
Though McMurrin speaks little Russian, he is able to communicate with his orchestra using "the musical language [Italian], which professional musicians understand well." He uses a translator, sparingly he says, when communicating with the choir.
Most of the musicians in the Kyiv Symphony are professionals who are regularly employed with other orchestras, including the State Philharmonic Orchestra and the State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra. The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra gives them the opportunity to perform new music, McMurrin said.
"I have the best musicians in the city," he said, adding that musicians are drawn to the Kyiv Symphony because of its repertoire.
"If you're a professional musician, and you've performed 'Swan Lake' 700 times or 'Romeo and Juliet' 1,000 times, it's stale," he said. "We give them the opportunity to perform classical works they haven't done before."
Indeed, in 1992, McMurrin was the first to perform Handel's Messiah with Ukrainian musicians, followed by Bach's St. Matthew Passion.
"Tchaikovsky ended the 1812 Overture with the words, 'God Save the Czar,'" McMurrin said. "There are two words that were out of favor under the Communists, who re-wrote the ending. We perform it as it was written."
Performing works by Russian and Ukrainian composers as they were originally conceived is important to McMurrin, who says that his musicians relish the opportunity to play music that was repressed or altered during Soviet times.
With his portfolio, McMurrin could probably conduct an orchestra in his native United States. But he is quick to note the difference between American musicians and their professional counterparts in Kyiv.
"In the United States, a musician's main concern is with money," He said. "Here, the musicians aren't jaded. It's all about the music."
Elsewhere in the world, symphonies are largely supported by grants from corporations and wealthy benefactors who want to ensure the performance of classical music. The Kyiv group lacks this support base, McMurrin said, largely because Western philanthropic concepts haven't extended to Ukraine, yet.
"People feel that they contributed to the Communist system for 70 years, and that was enough," he said.
The group has solicited corporate sponsorships in the past, but found that providing program advertising, tickets and other benefits to the sponsors was costly compared with the revenue received.
But that doesn't leave McMurrin without support. Enter Music Mission Kiev, a Florida-based religious charity McMurrin also founded. The organization's 1,800 members in the United States, along with a mailing list of 11,000 others support the orchestra and a handful of other ventures, including a youth orchestra managed by McMurrin's son, Matt.
High gear
McMurrin was an accomplished conductor and music educator before arriving in Kyiv. He holds a master's degree from Ohio State University, two honorary doctorates and is an ordained minister. He founded the Dallas Chamber Orchestra and the Simfonia Virtuosi in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He became artistic director of the State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra in 2003.
McMurrin, who turns age 65 this summer, says that he and his wife, Diane, have made Kyiv their home. Rather than scaling back at the traditional retirement age, the conductor seems poised to shift into an even higher gear. He said that this summer's visit might be the group's last U.S. tour for a while. He's got his eyes set on an invitation from China, and has sent out feelers to concert promoters throughout Europe.
"We're getting four or five responses a day" from a mailing to 900 European impresarios, he said. Though the economics of touring in Europe or China would be different, he said, the opportunities are there.
He also is hoping to raise up to $50,000 to take the symphony and choir to an expanded domestic audience during a three-week Ukrainian tour.
It costs $120,000 to underwrite a single performance by the Cleveland, Ohio Symphony, he said. That kind of money goes much further in Ukraine.
McMurrin is among the few members of the expatriate community to have been here a decade or more. He seems in awe of the changes that the capital has undergone since he arrived.
"In 1992, I had never seen such depression," he said. "Khreshchatyk was dark, and there was nothing in the shop windows."
McMurrin said that the connection between classical music and a Christian ministry isn't as fuzzy as it may seem. The best-known classical composers - Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Handel and others - wrote primarily religious music. Performing classics with religious themes that were banned by the Soviet Union allows an orchestra to essentially "premiere" music here that the rest of the world knows well.
"Christianity was destroyed by the Communists," McMurrin said. Despite the existence of Orthodox churches, he said, the process of spreading Christianity in the former Soviet Union had to start with the basics. Though Christianity has had an influence on the region for centuries, relatively few people knew much about the church after Ukraine became independent, he said.
"There are no spiritual grandchildren," he said, as each generation must be taught.
Today, McMurrin says that about seven percent of the population considers itself Christian. "Zero to seven percent in 12 years is terrific, and the growth is exponential," he says.
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