A bond forged through music has brought Iryna Usova back to Central Florida from her war-torn homeland of Ukraine. And now music will honor the men and women of her country who remain in danger because of the Russian invasion.
While earning a graduate degree at UCF, Usova met the Morris family when she began teaching daughter Natalie the violin. When Usova returned to Ukraine, they couldn’t bear to say goodbye — so the music lessons continued via Skype.
And when war broke out, the Morrises welcomed her back to safer shores, sponsoring her in a government visa program to help Ukrainians escape Russia’s deadly invasion.
Thursday afternoon, Usova will lead a concert for Ukraine; during the program, she and Natalie will duet on a Ukrainian composition.
“I will play from the heart for all Ukrainian people,” Usova said. “This is to support people’s spirits.”
When she was a child in Odesa, she envisioned the future: “I saw myself holding a violin in my hands and playing on the stage,” she said. But she didn’t envision a future in which she countered war with her music.
Usova was first introduced to the violin at age 5 when she attended a program in which musicians presented their instruments.
“I never will forget that day,” she said. “When I heard the first notes of the violin, everything turned around inside of me.”
Her mother agreed to lessons.
“As soon as I picked it up, I never wanted to let it go,” Usova said. “The violin is a part of me, a part of my soul.”
She didn’t let it go, playing professionally even as she studied for a degree at the Odesa National Music Academy.
She arrived in 2014 to further her education at the University of Central Florida. Two years later, she heard from Christina Morris, who was looking for a violin teacher for her daughter, Natalie.
Like Iryna, Natalie had found her passion early.
As a toddler, “she would take forks out of the drawer and pretend one was the violin and one was the bow,” her mother recalled. “I had no idea where she’d seen it.”
Natalie had gone through a few teachers by the time Usova came along, but the two instantly clicked.
“They had a connection that kept growing over time,” Morris said. “Iryna could tell whenever Natalie had problems. They could talk about anything. She became like Natalie’s big sister.”
But then Usova had to return to Ukraine.
“We did not want to stop the lessons because we had such a great relationship,” she said.
So years before the COVID-19 pandemic made online teaching a familiar idea, the Morrises and Usova set up lessons via Skype. They continued for five years.
In February, Russia invaded.
“We woke up to the sound of bombings and tremors,” Usova said. “In 20 minutes, we decided to leave for safety.”
But it wasn’t that easy. Her family is still scattered across Europe: mom, sister, nephew. Her brother-in-law is not allowed to leave Ukraine, as is the case for many men of military age.
In Orlando, the Morris family worried — and then in April, the U.S. government introduced the Uniting for Ukraine visa program, in which Ukrainians could come to the U.S. if they had someone willing to guarantee they would financially support them.
“She’s family,” Morris said. “We had to help.”
On May 28, Usova arrived.
“Natalie was staring at the stairs at baggage claim,” her mom recalled. “I said, ‘You’ll know it’s her. She’ll be carrying a violin.'”
She was.
That violin case didn’t stop the hug that was five years in the making. “Natalie didn’t want to let her go,” Morris said.
Usova is teaching Natalie the duet they will play in Thursday’s concert, at 2:30 p.m. at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Oviedo. They’ll be joined by former professors and colleagues from UCF, including George Weremchuk, who has Ukrainian heritage of his own.
He remembered Usova as a student.
“I was glad to see her return,” he said, “but sad to see her because it was caused by the conflict.”
The concert is personal to him, too; he has a cousin still in Ukraine and other family members who are refugees. Weremchuk grew up speaking Ukrainian at home; his father and family had fled Ukraine after the Nazis invaded and come to the U.S. in the 1950s.
Weremchuk wanted to play music by a Ukrainian composer — and found a piece he liked. One problem, though: He’s a saxophone professor, and the work was for two violins and piano. He reached out to the composer, who approved of re-orchestrating one of the violin parts for alto sax.
“It works very nicely,” Weremchuk said.
Usova also let her heart guide her in her concert selections.
“I decided to choose my favorite Ukrainian pieces,” she said.
Although she’s full of worry — she calls her mother every day — Usova also feels immense gratitude, the kind of thankfulness that comes from life-altering experiences.
“You start to think differently about how important little things are — just to be alive,” she said. “I say ‘thank you’ every day.”
A big part of those thanks goes to the Morrises.
“They’re just amazing people,” she said. “They are my second family.”
Morris said she and her husband wanted to do whatever they could and demonstrate an important lesson to their children.
“If you can help someone, help someone,” she said. “If we could have gotten all of [Usova’s family] over, we would have.”
Usova thinks she will make it through the concert without being overwhelmed by emotion.
“I guess it’s part of being Ukrainian,” she said. “No matter what, we are trying to be strong.”
And she has the power of music to lean on.
“Art unites people in difficult times,” Usova said. “When words run out, the music speaks for us.”
The concert is at 2:30 p.m. Aug. 25 at St, Luke’s Lutheran Church, 2021 W. State Road 426 in Oviedo.
Find me on Twitter @matt_on_arts, facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Want more theater and arts news and reviews? Go to orlandosentinel.com/arts.
