Kyrilo had been touring Spain with 50 other members of the Kharkiv orchestra since November.
The family and colleagues of a Ukrainian musician who died on tour in Europe have accused the organizers of the tour of negligence, drawing attention to the continuing plight of independent Ukraine’s cash-strapped cultural elite.
Thirty-two-year-old Kyrilo Osadchy, a percussionist in the Kharkiv Symphonic Orchestra, died in hospital of pneumonia Jan. 7 while on tour in Spain.
Kyrilo had been touring Spain with 50 other members of the Kharkiv orchestra since Nov. 4 when he started feeling ill on Jan. 2.
According to fellow musicians on the tour, Osadchy was forced to perform with a fever of 40 degrees Celsius and was denied access to a doctor for several days.
One orchestra member, Sergey Maltsev, said that conditions during the tour were so bad that the larger part of the group experienced health problems.
“There was no light or electricity [in our rooms]… and the rooms were moist,” Maltsev said.
According to Maltsev, the tour administrators didn’t call a doctor and forbade musicians from doing so, despite the fact that the orchestra members requested medical assistance and had paid for medical insurance.
Maltsev said that, initially, the musicians got instructions from Yuriy Logvinov, one of the organizers, to treat Osadchy for alcohol abuse.
Spanish health authorities reported to local media that Osadchy died from complications from pneumonia.
Vitaliy Kutsenko, the main conductor of the Kharkiv Opera Theater, where Osadchy’s symphony is based, said Osadchy was known to have problems with alcohol.
“Osadchy had a habit of abusing alcohol, and of course the continued drinking affected his immunity. For a strong healthy organism, there wouldn’t have been a risk.”
Osadchy’s family is currently preparing to file a law suit accusing the management of the Kharkiv Opera Theater of negligence in his death.
Osadchy’s widow, Yulia Kvitsinskaya, who is also a musician, said that over the past several years the orchestra has organized tours abroad as commercial ventures, rather than official tours, in order to avoid paying taxes and regular salaries to the musicians.
According to Kvitsinskaya, the musicians technically leave the employment of the orchestra for legal purposes during the period of the tour, and are “rehired” upon their return.
This scheme suits both sides, to some extent, as it gives regional musicians the opportunity to earn some money and travel, while both the foreign and Ukrainian organizers can earn a profit, she added.
Kvitsinskaya said that often the musicians aren’t shown the contracts, and don’t have any idea where they are going to stay.
“Of course, it is the responsibility of the musicians themselves, as they agree to such conditions and realize that there is a risk … But for many of us it is the only way to earn some money,” Kvitsinskaya said.
Roger McMurrin, an American citizen who heads the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, said that the first non-official tours of Ukrainian musicians to the West took place at the beginning of 90s, when they were a matter of necessity.
“At that time, the musicians here in Ukraine made something like $10 per month, while abroad they earned $25 per day – here in Ukraine it was a considerable sum and they were simply forced to do so.”
But, McMurrin added, organizing a music tour is expensive, and in the West music organizations simply can’t afford it, to say nothing of Ukraine.
The management at the Kharkiv Opera Theater said the theater is not responsible for tours by musicians. The head of the theater’s orchestra, Mikhail Dolzhikov, said tours such as the one on which Osadchiy died are the initiative of the musicians.
“It was all organized between the impresario (Logvinov), who acted as a separate organizer, and the musicians. Normally, the impresario would write an announcement that musicians are needed to perform in a given country, and those who were interested would contact him,” he said.
Dolzhikov added that it was the musicians who approached the theater administration with requests to let them off for the period of the tour.
In Kharkiv, the average salary of a classical musician is about Hr 800($160) per month, according to Maltsev.
According to Maltsev, during the Spain tour, each musician was paid 20 euros per concert and given 5 euros a day instead of a daily allowance.
Such situations for Ukrainian musicians are common except in Kyiv, where musicians get considerably better treatment, said Maltsev.
Valentina Komerzhenko of Kyiv’s “Dumka” choir, who often travels abroad for tours, said it is a matter of the musician’s professionalism. “If the musicians agree to such terms – I mean to the previous discharge and without seeing the contract beforehand – they have to understand that nobody is going to be responsible for them,” she said.
“We go on tours quite often and of course each time, all the conditions are in the contract down to the smallest detail, including the feeding, lodging and fees.”
For comparison, during Dumka’s tour of Mexico last autumn, her earnings were 40 euros per concert, 30 euros per rehearsal and 20 euros for her days off.
“Of course, when the trip is organized non-officially, it gets pretty hard to find responsible people.”
Olexander Gupchenko, Kvitsinskaya’s lawyer, said he doubts the case would result in charges being filed.
“It is a general problem in [Ukraine], where we still have cases when people go abroad absolutely disenfranchised. And what is more, people are still ignorant of their own rights,” he said.
