A Ukrainian composer has crafted a pitch perfect message of hope and defiance by turning a Russian missile into a musical instrument.
Roman Hryhoriv, one of Ukraine’s most celebrated contemporary composers, took an unexploded Uragan MLRS bomb, which fell on his homeland in 2022, and had its explosive innards replaced with cello strings.
He went on to compose ‘Hell’s Arrow Voice’ and ‘Song of the Unborn’ for the instrument. Its sound has been described as haunting, metallic and funereal, and Hryhoriv said that playing it was a “ritual of purification”.
