'Russia is trying to destroy the Ukrainian identity'

As the Finnish-Ukrainian conductor Dalia Stasevska releases her new album, she tells Nancy Durrant about the continued fight for her country's shattered cultural life

ALL is serene when I slip into the Conductor's Room at Maida Vale Studios to meet the Finnish Amaestro Dalia Stasevska.The 39-year-old, who is the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s principal guest conductor and chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in Finland, is tucked into a sofa, feeding her unfeasibly cute four-month-old daughter Aurora. The odd satisfied gurgle is the only peep from the latter for the hour we spend together.

This idyllic scene belies the turmoil that Stasevska is suffering. The two-year anniversary since the most recent invasion of her father’s homeland of Ukraine is weighing on her.

Her younger brother Lukas, a cellist and filmmaker, has been in the war-torn country since before the assault began in 2022, and is documenting the experiences of Ukraine’s fighters. Several times she and her older brother, Justas, have driven through the night in trucks to deliver supplies to the border.

On one occasion Stasevska stayed to conduct the International Symphony Orchestra (INSO) Lviv in concert — a rare chance for the Ukrainian musicians to play and get paid. She and her brothers have since raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for the country. “I am not a hero here,” she stresses. “Heroes are those people who are fighting on the frontlines. But this is something that I can do. It’s my dream now to conduct Ukrainian music, Ukrainian musicians, orchestras.”