All We Need Is Love
"All we need is Love"
John Lennon
On October 19, 2025, Freiman Hall at the University of Ottawa hosted an evening of poetry and music, “Yuras, Cantabile and Friends,” a kind of benefit performance in honour of the talented Belarusian poet Yuras Shamecki, who lives in Ottawa. The evening left an unforgettable impression on everyone present and created wonderful memories.
How much we lack peace and the ability to rejoice in everyday life... This Sunday concert became a ray of light amid the autumn melancholy! I went there hoping for a miracle, anticipating unique pleasure, as I had long been familiar with the work of Yuras and the Cantabile duo (Vlada Shamecki, violin, and Misha Rykov, guitar). Even so, what I witnessed exceeded even my very high expectations.
A. P. Chekhov, the famous playwright, once rightly observed: “If you want to become an optimist and understand life, stop believing what people say and write, and observe and delve into things.” It was extraordinarily interesting to observe what was happening, and even more so to reflect on it. Having carefully thought through everything down to the smallest detail, the organizers—who were also the main participants of the event—took care of every listener. It seemed to me that they reached every member of the audience and touched the deepest strings of everyone’s soul. Here are some of the comments:
Thank you, friends, for an incredible performance, for such powerful emotions, warm energy, and simply for being who you are!
Thank you so much for your work, sincerity, and contribution to Belarusian culture. We wish you continued inspiration. We are proud of you and love you!
Dear friends, I just want to express (even if you have already heard from many people) my gratitude for the wonderful concert you gave us all today. Truly excellent work and performances by all participants.
When we are relaxed, we notice important details more easily and find unconventional solutions without effort. When we are well-rested, we accept feedback from others more calmly, separating what is useful from what is unnecessary. In a rested state, we make fewer mistakes, absorb new information without tension, believe in ourselves more, and become kinder. That is why rest in the company of gifted people who love one another and the whole world is a gift generously given to us by Vlada and Yuras Shamecki, Misha Rykov, Ales Korolkevich, and their wonderful friends who took part in the concert.
Our soul is a triple unity consisting of feelings, thoughts, and memory. Those who made the right choice to come to the concert on Sunday will remember it for a long time, because it inspired only kind thoughts and awakened the most beautiful feelings—feelings one does not want to lose.
There were hardly any empty seats in the small but cozy hall. Each guest received lovingly designed bilingual programs in Belarusian and English. The central part of the program symbolically featured the image of a clear peaceful sky over Ottawa, Minsk, New York, and Paris—the cities that inspired Yuras to write poetry during his travels. It was a powerful message of the strength of light, just like the concert’s final piece: Yuras’s poem “One Sky for All” set to Vladimir Vavilov’s Ave Maria.
The concert consisted of two parts, 65 minutes each, yet the time flew by as if in a single moment. No one wanted to leave. Yuras, the main hero of the evening, remained on stage throughout the entire concert. All the performers waited for their turn among the audience in the hall. The program unfolded flawlessly, without pauses or awkward moments, as if it had been polished for years. The composition of the evening was arranged very professionally: the numbers intertwined concisely, replacing one another and creating astonishing harmony. The interactive communication with the audience from beginning to end was filled with such love and kindness that tears of tenderness welled up in the eyes of both listeners and performers. Although Yuras conducted the evening in Belarusian, even those who did not know the language—and there were many—understood everything clearly. That is what sincerity means! That is what genuine love means—love that cannot be acted out! The entire evening was permeated with it. Only very kind people with open hearts can create such an amazing atmosphere of warmth and soulfulness.
А ад нас застанецца лепшае
на шляхах, заўжды супярэчлівых,
у абставінах супрацьлеглага
дабрынёй мы заўсёды вечныя…
And from us, the best will remain
on roads forever contradictory,
in circumstances of the opposite—
through kindness we are always eternal…
(from the poem “The Unpredictable”)
The center of the stage backdrop was occupied by a huge screen on which slides, mini-videos, and photographs changed in precise synchronization with the music and spoken words. Incredible synchronicity! The magnificent selection of photos and slides, their outstanding quality meeting world-class standards, was the achievement of the true professional Ales Korolkevich, modest as he is, together with his family, his wife Inna and daughter Ksenia.
In the first part, what left an unforgettable impression on me personally were the poem “Angel,” emotionally recited by Alexandra Logvin, Andrei Makarevich’s song “Candle,” translated into Belarusian by Yuras and performed by Misha Rykov, and Yuras’s poem “Tango” set to the music of Astor Piazzolla, accompanied by the dance duo In Motion.
At first, the dancing couple appeared in close-up on the screen. Computer technology helped synchronize the movements of the dance with the live music. The final bars of the passionate dance became a real surprise—the dancing pair appeared live on stage in the same costumes as on the screen. They finished the dance live... unexpectedly and very impressively!
When the song “Candle” was performed, the screen showed a burning candle that gradually seemed to lose its flame; then another candle appeared beside it, and both flared up again with renewed strength—a symbol of solidarity and support.
Among the highlights of the second part were the poem “Paris,” spiritually recited by Aksana Mozgovaya, and the touching lyrical Adagio from the ballet The Little Prince by Yevgeny Glebov, deeply performed by pianist Alexandra Golod.
For this concert, Elena Obolenskaya specially prepared her song “In the Style of Chagall,” whose text Yuras translated into Belarusian. I was also struck by the refined sense of humor of Nina Gordon, a remarkable cellist and arranger. Nina found a way to combine the music of Franz Schubert’s piano trio with Yuras’s poem “The Boy,” and before the performance she told the audience about the secrets of creating the composition, in which musical phrases echoed the intonations of the poetic lines.
The climax of the concert was the performance by Emily Lakstan, a Canadian soprano of incredible purity, accompanied by Nina Gordon and the Cantabile duo, which received enthusiastic applause from the audience. The crystal-clear voice of the Canadian singer, who performed in Belarusian two songs by composer Igor Luchenok in arrangements by Nina Gordon, filled the audience with delight.
I was reminded of Belovezhskaya Pushcha, that unique forest massif in Europe—a land of beauty and peace in Belarus, guardian of protected natural treasures. Ottawa-based Belarusian poet Yuras Shamecki carefully preserves and multiplies the riches of the Belarusian language and culture, involving friends, like-minded people, and a wide multinational audience who find joy in communion with beauty.
Жадаў бы словы зберагчы,
памылкі, вершы, спадзяванні,
каб не згубіцца на мяжы
паміж жывым і непрымальным,
каб у рэальнасці сваёй
у лёгкае сівое ранне
знайсці гарэзлівы настрой
свайму зямному існаванню.
I would like to preserve words,
mistakes, poems, hopes,
so as not to be lost on the border
between the living and the unacceptable,
so that in my own reality,
in the light gray dawn,
I might find a playful mood
for my earthly existence.
(from the poem “Reading Hagakure”)
Vlada, Yuras’s wife and muse, conceived and brought to life the idea of organizing and holding the evening for her beloved husband’s anniversary, while their friends—wonderful musicians, dancers, and poetry readers—supported the idea and took part in the concert as a sign of respect and gratitude.
Misha Rykov, Emily Lakstan, Nina Gordon, Alexandra Golod, Elena Obolenskaya, Oleg Buyevich, Yevgeny Ivanov, Lyudmila Troyanovski, Aksana Mozgovaya, Alexandra Logvin, the family of Ales Korolkevich, Igor Korolkevich, and the whole team together are a powerful force!
Many believe that happiness is the joy of every minute lived. I would compare happiness to an electrocardiogram—pulsation and stillness, confidence and discouragement, pride and self-destruction, admiration and disappointment... All these definitions are the constant companions of each of us. The pulsation of every lived moment makes us happy and free from all limitations. The evening of poetry and music described above is a vivid example of this. Let us be happy, people!
Author: Marina Kochetova