Band Kids From the Heartland at Russia’s Embassy

On the way to the concert, we could hear the latest news, and members of Congress and experts trying to explain who had surveilled whom and, even more astonishing, who had leaked about what to whom. The 2016 election, long after it was over, and the Russian connection and all the resultant media firestorms that go with it was fully engaged, all over the airwaves and the social media. The voices sounded for all the world like the chattering of mice looking for a pied piper to give them directions to the nearest cliff.

But then, something remarkable happened. There they were, a bunch of high school-aged kids from the American heartland, standing outside the gates of the Embassy of the Federation of Russia on Wisconsin Avenue, young men and women buzzing like bees, waiting to get into the Embassy for an evening of classical music and a special concert put together by the Embassy Series, a Washington organization that is unique for presenting concerts and gatherings in embassies and ambassador residences every year.

Right about then, as you saw the teens from Fort Wayne, Indiana (the second-largest city in Indiana, where Vice President Mike Pence was governor once), all of them, and their accompanying adults, excited, energized, all of them members of the Homestead Spartan Alliance Band, a group that with some regularity has a record of winning state marching-band championships.

Of a sudden, for two or three hours or so, amid the large-shadowed, spectacular and sometimes opulent grounds and rooms of the Russian Embassy, the all-consuming buzz faded away with almost alarming ease as the Indiana young people mingled with the Russian staff there, and people who were attending the concert.

Remarkably, the animated political commentary faded away, to be replaced by the irresistible power of music and youth. While the Russian ambassador H.E. Sergey I. Kislyak, much talked about in the world outside the gates, was not in attendance, it felt somehow historic to see this gathering of American youth and Russians in residence, a gathering that did not so much feel like a civics lesson, but more like ground zero for a celebration of hope and the insistent pull of artistry.

The Embassy Series under its director Jerome Barry — a baritone who also sang in fine voice — has as its mission to promote what he calls musical diplomacy, both a laudable goal and sometimes a pragmatic necessity.

There was as the evening passed only a few references to the alarms outside, more in passing than anything else. The stars of the evening were at turns the band kids, Mozart and Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, the sounds of Eastern European flutes, the band kids, the smooth American pianist Christopher Schmitt, some of the greatest hits from “Carmen,” elegies and hymns, the band kids, the gifted Russian violinist Igor Pikayzen, the man of many flutes Andrei Pidkivka and his wife, the violinist Solomia Gorokhivska, both from Ukraine, Barry’s giving voice to Mozart’s musical swain Pabageno and last but not least the Moscow prodigy 21-year-old pianist Nikita Galaktionov, a young man mostly in black with a poet’s hair and flair, who seemed to have stepped right of the opening scene of “La Boheme.”

You can see where this is going, of course. Together in the same room, Russians and Ukrainians (which was referenced by the Ukrainians in passing), a crowd of curious, enthusiastic American musician kids from the heartland, all taking in or playing the music of mostly Europe and Eastern Europe, eating a smorgasbord of Russian food afterwards, an acknowledged first for many of the band kids.

The folks from Fort Wayne had been here before at a similar concert at the Embassy of Austria three years ago. Director Steve Barber was thrilled to be there then, but this was a little different. “Sure, we all know what’s going, but this, look at the kids this is really about music having the power to bring people together, I really feel good about this.”

Even without the kids, this would have been a special concert, one to savor for its music, the intensity of the Russian Pikayazen and the very cool dexterity of Schmitt playing the piano like Fred Astaire might dance. Pidkivka demonstrated the dexterity of the flute — in its varying physical incarnations as well as in the diversity of sounds and music — with zest and a flavored storytelling ability that took you to the Carpathian mountains, to Ukraine, Romania, through and across forests and rivers, at one time playing the longest flute in Eastern Europe.

It was the presence of Galaktionov who seemed to fascinate everyone, including the band members. He seemed in presence the essence of what Joyce titled a “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” playing and practicing since early childhood, managing to be both confident and a little shy, not to mention earnest.

“I wish to say that I pray to God that someday, people from Russia, from the Ukraine and America can be together without talking about politics,” he said, then proceeded to play several pieces with a kind of insistence that made you listen carefully, including a Tchaikovsky piece about fall and October and leaves and sunlight, an “Elegy” that Galaktionov described as “almost too private.”

There was excellence afoot, sure thing, but there was something else too: the presence of all those high-spirited young people, all of them bracing and embracing. A group of girls were talking in a corner afterward, and said that they were aware of all the news about Russia “and all that. But we didn’t come here for that. We came here to learn about a different culture, and, in the band, everybody plays music, we’re the flag people, marching and twirling,” one of them said. “It was exciting to be here, to see all this.” The hands pointed to the bright chandeliers in the concert hall, the ornate and large tapestries. We asked them about the young Russian pianist. “He played beautifully,” one of them said. “He’s very serious.” “He was kind of cute,” another said.

The American young people made the night eclectic, electric and hopeful. As we left, we saw them cheering themselves in a loud group, a cheer you could second easily. Next day, the tower of babble sent out its signals again. The band members were riding in buses, on the way home again to Indiana.