Arts & Entertainment

Irena Portenko Plays Piano to Save Lives

Published 1 year ago1y ago • Bookmarks: 107

Irena Portenko over a coffee at Dobbs Ferry's Cafe Latte

April 14, 2023

By Barrett Seaman–

It was a little over a year ago, March 27, when Dobbs Ferry resident and concert pianist Irena Portenko led a group of fellow musicians—most of them also of Ukrainian descent—in an eclectic fundraising program at the Tarrytown Music Hall (see: https://thehudsonindependent.com/a-sold-out-music-hall-signals-deep-community-support-for-ukraine/).

The house was full, and the event raised more than $28,000, distributed to four charitable organizations dedicated to supporting the people of Ukraine only a month into the Russian invasion of their country.

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A year later, Irena Portenko is still at it.

While the war back home in Ukraine raged on through the spring, summer, fall and winter, Portenko worked tirelessly, pulling together fellow musicians and lining up concern venues around the country and in Europe. Since Tarrytown, she has done 50 events and in doing so raised more than $150,000. Almost apologetically, she says, “That’s the only thing I can do.”

It turns out that’s far from the only thing Irena Portenko can do or has done. While she continues to funnel money she raises through established humanitarian organizations, among them Razom (razomforukraine.org) and United Help Ukraine (unitedhelpukraine.org), she has also established direct ties through GoFundMe campaigns to scores of Ukrainian musicians and their families, many of whom are still in-country, often surviving day-to-day in dire circumstances.

“What are the basic things that we need?” she would ask herself. “I was taking for granted the basics: you turn on the faucet and you get clean water. You get electricity to turn on the microwave and heat your meal. All of a sudden, I realized that these people don’t have anything like this.”

The large charitable organizations she has contributed to are very good at organizing and delivering gallons of water, food stuffs, blankets and clothing. But individual circumstances—and needs—vary, and Portenko found ways to turn donations into solutions—often for serious musicians whose needs can be unique.

There was the case of a musician whose mother broker her hip and was stuck sitting in a bomb shelter with no medical help, no blankets and not enough food. Irena channeled money to provide relief as it was needed. By setting up GoFundMe campaigns and using PayPal to transfer the money, Portenko provided the money to sustain the woman.

Aware of the hard work it takes to become a professional musician, Portenko recognized that musicians who were naturally devoting their time to helping other Ukrainians were not getting the practice time they needed. One clarinetist, who was cooking meals but also making netting to camouflage Ukrainian tanks, confided that, for lack of practice time, he was losing his musical skills and was “not in a very good emotional state,” she recounts. She pushed him to get back to practicing but also connected him with a professor at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University who offered him a place in a Master Class with a renowned French clarinetist, provided he make a recording of himself, which he did, traveling to Lviv to do so.

“My next step was to bring him to Austria,” she says. It was difficult getting him out of Ukraine, but he made it first to Austria and then on to London where she had persuaded the parents of a former piano student to sponsor him. Since September he has been working towards his Masters degree while playing with a symphony orchestra.

All told, she has personally sponsored 15 musicians, most of them pianists. The money comes from her concerts and individual GoFundMe efforts but sometimes through unexpected channels. A friend who is a sales rep for the German piano maker Bechstein asked her if she would make a presentation at the annual trade show for NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants, in Anaheim CA. Not sure who would be attending, she decided to do an audience participation exercise by playing different pieces on different pianos, asking audience members to guess which piano would bring out the best in certain styles of music. The presentation was such a hit that Bechstein offered not only money but also a brand new top-of-the line piano to be shipped to Linz, Austria. Linz is a special place for Irena since she played Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with an orchestra there in 2012. She has since launched an annual a festival, Music in the Alps, held each August. This year, she has invited fellow Ukrainian musicians to perform there. The revenue will help support displaced Ukrainians.

Seventy thousand dollars donated by a student, Zach Hoffman, a banker and philanthropist, and two of his former colleagues, Jack Dwyer and Elizabeth Buckalew, allowed Portenko to buy a house in western Ukraine to use as a shelter. Purchased last July for $90,000, it has since taken in 22 families. “People sometimes come with nothing in their hands,” she says. In addition to taking care of their immediate physical needs, the shelter provides psychological and legal help. “Kids have a variety of classes offered to them,” she says. “Especially important are the art therapy sessions.”

Contributions helped pay for this shelter in western Ukraine

As relentless as Irena Portenko’s pursuit of support for Ukraine is, she doesn’t—and couldn’t–do it alone. She has considerable practical help from Vlad Nazarenko, an IT professional (also a pianist) who is a master at setting up PayPal accounts for Portenko’s growing flock. Because he earns a comfortable living as a tech specialist, he refuses to be paid for his work.

Irena Portenko, along with a number of the musicians who performed at the Tarrytown Music Hall, will return to the concert stage in Westchester on Sunday, April 23^rd at Grace Episcopal Church in White Plains. Having played there many times in the past, Portenko praises the atmosphere of the church, a place she calls “a very nice place to share music.”

More than a year into a war with no end in sight, Portenko is aware that America’s enthusiasm for her country’s cause shows signs of flagging. Still, she has faith that they will see beyond the geopolitics and embrace the needs of a suffering people, among them some very talented and worthy musicians, like her.