Moldova native Natalia Turchin will perform recital to raise funds for opera festival
MAY 5, 2022 – 4:00 AM
Staff report
Natalia Turchin, 26, an international student at Southeastern Louisiana University from Edinet in the Republic of Moldova, will perform a recital on Saturday to help fund her participation in an international opera festival this summer. “The war in Ukraine is very close to my country, Moldova,” Turchin said. “I am organizing my benefit concerts to raise the money for my studies.”
The concert Saturday will be the third concert Turchin has organized in an effort to support her studies as her family’s circumstances have changed with the war in Ukraine, Moldova’s neighbor. “My father had a business from Ukraine. He was importing from there,” she said. “From the beginning of the war, the supply chain stopped. He could not make the money any more. No one knows what will happen. People are over-stressed. We have fear what can happen to us next. We are a country between the European Union and Ukraine.” Turchin’s recital will be at 2 p.m. in First Christian Church’s Reimers Auditorium, 305 E. Charles St., Hammond.
Turchin came to the U.S. to work on her master’s degree in vocal performance at Southeastern. She has been accepted by La Musica Lirica, International Opera Festival for singers, which takes place from June 18 to July 22 in Novafeltria, Italy. The festival will give her the opportunity to work with nationally and internationally recognized musicians. Turchin will be a participant in the festival’s Opera division and has been awarded the role of Elvira in “L’Italiana in Algeri” by G. Rossini. The opera will be fully staged and performed with the professional Symphony Orchestra from Ravenna, Italy.
The overall cost of the program, which will run from June 18-July 23, is approximately $8,300, which includes tuition, transportation, room and board. From two previous concerts, she has raised about $3,000 and a travel scholarship from Southeastern University. Turchin has set up a GoFundMe account at gofund.me/9d64b178. She also is taking donations through her Facebook fundraiser at facebook.com/donate/961779027 and at the recital.
