“An evacuation of young musicians who play with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine is underway, as Europe’s classical music community plays a small part in the continent’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II,” writes Tim Gallagher in Tuesday’s (3/8) Associated Press. “Violins, cellos and violas littering a train platform in Hungary were accompanied by their young owners fresh from a long train journey…. 30 of their number were still unaccounted for. Violinist Myroslava Sherbina says her instrument was the only thing she took as she fled Ukraine, along with the clothes she wore. The instrument has remained silent since the start of Russia’s invasion of her country. ‘I didn’t want to play so I could hear the sirens and we could go to the bomb shelter,’ says the 20-year-old…. She is among the more than 1.7 million people who have fled Ukraine…. On Monday, European Union foreign affairs policy chief Josep Borrell urged the mobilization of ‘all the resources’ of the 27-nation bloc to help countries welcoming them. Sherbina … and her companions made their way to Slovenia as part of a joint evacuation mission with a Slovenian orchestra.”
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