While the sounds of war echo across his native Ukraine, beautiful music from Andrii Padkovskyi’s violin cascades throughout his new home in Southwest Florida.
Andrii, a ninth grader at Venice High School, placed first in the middle school division of the 2024 Venice Musicale Scholarship Program (while a student at Laurel Nokomis School). Awards were announced — and the top finishers performed — April 30 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Venice.
First place in the High School division went to Eli Taylor (guitar and vocals), who recently graduated from Lemon Bay High School in Englewood. The winner of the elementary division was Jin Huang (piano), who completed fifth grade at Pine View School in Osprey.
FAMILY ACROSS THE GLOBE
Andrii, 14, was born in Lviv, which borders Poland in western Ukraine. He is the youngest of six siblings (five brothers and one sister). Three are musicians.
Before the war began, Andrii’s siblings were living across the globe. The oldest, Arthur, 33, lives in Israel. Sister Diana lives in Dubai with her husband.
Two brothers, Yurii and Olexandr, have been living in the Czech Republic, where they’ve been studying music. Yurii joined his mother Tamara and Andrii in Florida on June 8.
“Our family is all over the world,” Tamara said.
After Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Andrii and Tamara traveled to the Czech Republic where they lived for about six months with his brothers. Tamara and Andrii then traveled back home for their belongings and to say goodbye before settling in Florida. Venice became their latest destination because Tamara’s best friend from childhood lives here and sponsored them.
Martial law prohibits men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving Ukraine, unless they are deemed unfit for military service for health reasons or have an exemption. Those 25 and older can be drafted. Brother Mamikon, 28, cannot leave Ukraine but is not in the army. Their father, also named Yurii, is an engineer in Ukraine.
MULTLINGUAL
Tamara, who speaks English with assistance from an electronic translator — and with Andrii translating her Russian in an interview — speaks five languages. He speaks three.
She paints, plays piano and performed with an orchestra in Lviv. But an injury to her hand while skiing when she was 15 curtailed her music career.
Tamara said it’s difficult to be in the United States with her sons, away from the others, “but I think about the future of (Andrii) because he’s a talented musician, and my other (Yurii) is a very good musician, too.”
Before he left the Czech Republic, Yurii finished his undergraduate degree and was a top finisher in the Silverstein Clarinet Contest.
Donna Smith, a violinist who retired from The Venice Symphony in 2022, met Tamara and Andrii in December of that year, two months after they moved here, when they were looking for violin lessons.
Initially Smith intended to teach those lessons, but after she heard Andrii play, she instead introduced him to The Venice Symphony concertmaster Marcus Ratzenboeck.
“When he came to me at 12, he played Paganini,” Smith said of Andrii, with an admiring smile. (The noted Italian violinist and composer lived in the 18th and 19th centuries.)
“Andrii is a very gifted and talented young violinist who has high aspirations to be a concert violinist,” Ratzenboeck said. “He came to me about a year and a half ago and he agreed — and his mom, Tamara (agreed) — to come at regular times every week and do a certain curriculum — very specific to how I was taught — and all of the instructions he followed very well and was very disciplined. The process seems to help him be successful.
“He’s an example of if students have the discipline and adhere to instructions, they can achieve their goals.”
Meanwhile, Smith has remained friends with the Padkovskyi family.
FAMILY OF MUSICIANS
The three Padkovskyi brothers who are musicians (the fourth through sixth in line) were interested in different instruments. Olexandr went to his mother and said he wanted to play piano. Yurii began his musical journey by playing piano but switched to clarinet after he heard how it sounds.
Andrii heard his brothers practicing five hours every day and said, “I want to be a musician.” Tamara suggested he play the violin. He heard one and loved it. Andrii began playing at age 6.
In Florida he has participated in the Illyrian Symphony Orchestra (Venice), Strings Con Brio (Sarasota) the Sarasota Youth Orchestra and at several Venice Musicale concerts.
Andrii said there is a lot of pressure on him to perform well. But he defeats that pressure through supreme preparation. Smith reminded him of his preparation for the 2024 Sarasota Young Artists competition “and how you get ready to go in front of an audience.”
Five minutes before his time on stage, Smith said, “‘That one shift that you were struggling with, to keep it in tune. I bet you played it 40 times. I would have stopped after 10.’
“When he got out there, it was flawless,” she said.
Preparation “is very important,” Andrii said. “I just think ‘I have to do it,’ and that’s it. I just have to. I believe that I can do it.”
LESSONS IN LVIV
All three young Padkovskyi musicians attended a special school in Lviv. Students went to regular classes in the morning and to music classes afterward.
“It was good, but it was very hard,” Andrii said, adding that he’s proud of his accomplishments there. One of his instructors had a “very harsh” teaching style.
“She would put me in a room, and I would play five or more hours, by myself,” Andrii said. “It was very hard. She would say, ‘Practice this. Go!’”
Despite his misgivings about her teaching style, Andrii acknowledges that he benefitted from it and said he’d love for her to see him play today.
Smith said Ratzenboeck is coaching Andrii in how to interact with orchestras.
“It’s different when you are six and they say, ‘Go practice,’” she said. “(Now) there’s a mentoring, a commonality” where the eager Andrii asks, ‘What are we going to learn next?’
“There’s a joy and an excitement that I see with him” when he anticipates learning a new piece, she said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s 10 hours of practice. The joy is there. It’s not drudgery. It’s fun.”
Smith also plays piano and accompanies Andrii. When they were preparing for the Sarasota Young Artists competition, Ratzenboeck was on hand and the experience was an example of his “practical” coaching.
When they reached a difficult section, Ratzenboeck told Andrii what to do to keep the accompanying orchestra with him if he was going to win,” Smith recalled. “He understands how to reach an audience” and how to work efficiently with an accompanist, ensemble or orchestra.
Andrii won the competition for his age group.
More recently, Andrii spent part of June at Florida State University’s summer music camp, where he was named concertmaster and was selected to play a solo for a concert there.
“To be selected for these roles is an honor,” Smith said.
PLAYS LIKE A PROFESSIONAL
Technically, Smith said, Andrii at 14 can compete with professional violinists to play first violin and do very well.
“He doesn’t have the overarching experience of years in an orchestra, or years of touring to perform,” she said, adding that Andrii is trained as a soloist, not as a violin section member of an orchestra.
Andrii practices violin about five hours a day. When he needs a break, he spends time with his friends or playing soccer.
Looking back at his April 30 performance at St. Mark’s, Smith said his intonation was “nearly flawless. And his expression. His preparation and his musicality … he’s expressing the music the way that he feels it, which at 14 is beyond almost everybody else there that played.”
Smith has been in the area for 30 years, working both as a musician and music teacher. She said the young musician from the area who comes closest to Andrii’s talent level was Rebecca Reale, a Venice native and now a first violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Being a successful professional classical musician is no easy task in 2024.
“In the United States you need different streams of income to survive as a musician, so he’s got to figure out the orchestra part as well as the solo (part), as well as teaching, as well as how to gig.”
The Padkovskyis are in the United States as war refugees. Tamara, Yurii and Andrii’s immigration status is up for review every two years. Tamara and Andrii have been extended through October 2026. Yurii has two years from June 9. Everyone’s immigration status will play a role in their next steps, including Andrii’s and Yurii’s musical education and future.
“I want to stay in America but if we can have all of the family here, my dad and musician brothers, it would be very good,” he said, “I would like to stay.”
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