Belleville, Ont. community steps up to help Ukrainian composer – Kingston

The continuing warfare in Ukraine has compelled thousands and thousands of individuals to flee their residence nation and start choosing up the items of their lives.

That’s the case for one man, a composer, who has simply settled in Belleville.

Nonetheless, due to the efforts of native residents, he’s in a position to proceed his research by means of the donation of a piano.

Neither the piano nor the house that Kyrylo Stepanenko is enjoying in are his, however enjoying is a vital a part of him persevering with his training at a college in Lviv to grow to be a composer.

With a piano, he is ready to keep on his training remotely.

“Piano for us is sort of a preliminary examine or topic, now we have to check piano,” mentioned Sepanenko.

He initially moved to Canada in 2003, however for the final six years he’s been residing and learning in Ukraine, most just lately in Lviv.

After the Russian invasion, Stepanenko, alongside together with his grandmother and his mom who splits her time residing in Ukraine and Canada, needed to flee the warfare with virtually nothing.

“We got here from Kyiv solely with backpacks as a result of we knew that we’re going to attempt on prepare and we knew that no even small suitcase will match the method,” mentioned Natalia Laluq, his mom.

A neighborhood Belleville grassroots group and now not-for-profit referred to as Humanity for Free Ukraine have been in a position to assist Stepanenko purchase a piano he can name ‘his personal’ with a put up on their Fb web page.

“The primary Ukrainian coming to Belleville is a composer and he wants a piano for his apply, and I don’t know what number of pianos he was supplied — I frankly don’t even know — however quite a bit, quite a bit,” mentioned Myroslava Symonenko of Humanity free of charge Ukraine.

Stepanenko mentioned he’s grateful and even little overwhelmed by the response and isn’t totally shocked by the assistance he’s obtained.

“Individuals over listed here are tremendous pleasant as standard and so they’re actually comfortable to assist us in these troublesome instances, so Belleville has been the most effective in serving to us out,” he added.

Stepanenko mentioned he ought to have the donated piano at his house in a couple of week, permitting his dream of turning into a composer to proceed and return to his war-torn homeland sometime when it’s secure.

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