Sewickley benefit concert for Ukraine to feature Ukrainian refugee family

When Katerina Boiko fled to the United States with her 13-year-old daughter Alexa to escape the war in Ukraine, her focus was on survival. But after settling in with her sponsor family in Sewickley in mid-July, Boiko felt that she wanted more.

“I don’t want to be here just to survive,” she said. “I want to be here to thrive.”

And now, reunited with her husband Denis, Boiko is doing just that.

On Dec. 11, she and her musical family will be featured players performing a mix of Ukrainian and traditional English/American Christmas music, in A Benefit Concert for Ukraine at Sewickley United Methodist Church.

The concert will start at 7 p.m. and also feature musicians from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, including soloists Marta Krechkovsky on violin and Victoria Luperi on clarinet, who learned specific Ukrainian music pieces in preparation for the concert.

The concert is a joint presentation of the Sewickley Music Club and Nova Ukraine, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid. Proceeds from the concert will go to Ukraine for humanitarian aid.

Katerina, a singer, and Denis, a drummer, are natives of Zhytomyr in Ukraine (about 86 miles north of Kyiv). They formed their own band and had been working for Royal Carribean Group. Their daughter Alexa is an accomplished flutist.

“We’re excited, because at first we were just focused on where to live and how to survive,” Boiko said. “(Now) we are ready to participate. We want to volunteer. We want to help somebody. The best we can do is create and participate in a concert. We are a very musical family and we are ready to present ourselves and to be helpful.

“It’s my duty to help (Ukraine) how we can.”

The concert is organized by Cheryl Redmond, vice-president of the Sewickley Music Club.

”This is special. It’s the first time we have ever done something like this because of the special need for the concert,” Redmond said. “We have this Ukrainian family right in our village and we felt we have to do something to help the people in Ukraine and we had to do it by Christmas.

“The war is lingering and they need medicine — and that’s what this money is going to be going for, as well as helping the refugees, anybody that needs to get out of (Ukraine) like Kate and her family did.”

Redmond said she and other members of the Sewickley community have enjoyed getting to know Katerina and the Boiko family.

“It’s been absolutely wonderful,” Redmond said. “She is a lovely person.”

Katerina said the family has been preparing some “jazzy Christmas songs” and that she plans to sing “Silent Night” in Ukrainian.

“We’ll perform ‘Jingle Bells’ together in a jazzy style,” she said. “We want to say thanks and how grateful we are to the community. ”

Redmond said she was impressed that the PSO musicians were volunteering to perform the concert to help Ukraine.

“It’s extremely exciting. Yes, we’re asking for donations but people are getting something in return – a beautiful concert. And we’re going to have a nice reception afterwards.”