Nikki

Music Ambassadors Tour 2025: Bearing Witness to War and Cultural Defiance in Ukraine - From the Traces of Destruction to the Revival of Tradition

On December 15-18, 2025, the Ukrainian Association of Music Events (UAME) and its Music Saves Ukraine initiative will hold the third edition of the Music Ambassadors Tour — an international cultural diplomacy initiative that brings leading representatives of the European music industry to Ukraine to show them the role that culture plays in a country living through war. The impact from the first two editions, held in 2022 and 2024, can still be felt now as its participants have become Ukraine’s ambassadors within the music world — loud voices, which can be heard across festivals and professional events, rallying support for the rebuilding of Ukrainian culture and highlighting Ukrainian voices.

During the tour, international guests together with the UAME team will explore Kyiv and travel to the north and the south of Ukraine. For security reasons, the exact routes and locations are not disclosed. The purpose of the journey is to allow participants to witness the contrasting reality in which Ukrainian culture currently finds itself: between spaces where it has been deliberately targeted and physically destroyed by the invaders and spaces where it is defiantly nurtured and restored by Ukrainians despite the challenges war brings.

In the south, the guests will see with their own eyes the destruction brought to communities, their music schools and cultural institutions in an attempt to erase the platforms where the future musicians, educators and cultural leaders are born. Today, many of them remain without infrastructure, instruments and means to continue to educate. These ruins represent not only physical destruction but, above all, a targeted attempt to erase cultural continuity and national identity. At the same time, it will be seen how UAME|Music Saves Ukraine, together with ambassadors from previous tours, helped these music schools by telling their stories and providing them with new instruments and educational materials, giving at least some hope and relief to young music students and teachers, who bravely pursue cultural growth no matter what.

In the north, the team will show how Ukrainians counteract this onslaught on culture and rediscover, preserve and revive Ukrainian music tradition - from the living practice of crafting traditional musical instruments to the work of cultural practitioners who document and recover fragments of lost musical memory. It is not about folklore as a museum artefact, but a living tradition that continues to shape identity even amidst war.

At the end of the journey, a networking event will be held in Kyiv where the participants will meet Ukraine’s cultural community and music professionals, take part in discussion panels where they will share their impressions while discussing how, with joint effort, culture can become a driving force for rebuilding and positive change.

The tour brings together representatives of music institutions, festivals and professional platforms from across Europe. 

Among the confirmed participants are 

• Vaidas Stackevičius (Lithuania), CEO of M.P.3 Group and co-founder of the Lithuanian Music Business Association; 
• Ivan Milivojev (Serbia), co-founder of EXIT Festival and Exchange Ambassador of Eurosonic Noorderslag;
• Pavla Slívová (Czech Republic), head of booking at Colours of Ostrava; 
• Mikko Niemelä (Finland), CEO of Ruisrock Festival; 
• Maiju Talvisto (Finland), Executive Director of Our Festival and Co-director of shesaid.so Finland; 
• Kristīne Kleina (Latvia), Founder of Deep Fried Agency, which specializes in music management and artist development;
• Robbie Tolson (Scotland), social entrepreneur, DJ and founder of Turn The Tables;
• Winston Tifferson (Trinidad & Tobago), Turn The Tables trustee, senior HR/people partner and DJ.

The list of participants is not final and will be expanded further

Music Ambassadors Tour was conceived as a way to speak about Ukraine not through abstract narratives, but through lived experience on the ground and real contact with people who are fighting for their freedom. It highlights the importance of having international voices supporting Ukraine, which drown out the silence that emerges from the destruction brought by war. This is how the team behind the project implements cultural diplomacy: not as a symbolic showcase, but as an experience that continues to reverberate through our international participants, who carry it back to their countries, festivals, institutions and professional environments. An important feature of each tour is the documentary movie, which follows the team and participants on their journey, so that viewers can share this life-changing experience with them.

“We do not want to simply talk about the war. We want the international community to see how war destroys culture — and how, despite everything, culture defies it and continues to resist. This immersive journey makes our guests more than just witnesses; it turns them into real ambassadors of Ukraine,” notes the UAME team.

Importantly, the Music Ambassadors Tour has already resulted in long-term impact beyond the journeys themselves. Thanks to the partnerships and trust built throughout the project, the UAME team has become part of the process of updating music education in Ukraine. Within the framework of the Music Saves Ukraine initiative, music schools across the country received new music instruments and contemporary educational materials. This project was implemented together with the Swiss foundation Culture & Education for Life, which was created by UAME|Music Saves Ukraine ambassador Christof Huber following his participation in Music Ambassadors Tour 2024. In this way, the project has shown how just a single visit to a brave country at war and encounters with brave people fighting for the survival of their country and its culture can leave a lasting impression and inspire the creation of long-term initiatives, which make a real difference in the lives of Ukrainians.

Evolved from a one-time initiative into an element of sustained work aimed at rebuilding and shaping the future of Ukrainian culture.

Follow the tour:
https://www.instagram.com/musicsavesukraine/ 

Links to visual elements of the tour and photos from previous tours: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ohhx2f0oFnfLhFo-GtCYmZIRVU8Do8bE?usp=sharing

Watch the documentaries from the first two edition of the project here:

Music Ambassadors Tour 2022 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6olbr0zAUGo)
Music Ambassadors Tour 2024 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGgIXVne2ic)

This project is produced by the Ukrainian Association of Music Events with the support of the Askold and Dir Fund as a part of the Strong Civil Society of Ukraine - a Driver towards Reforms and Democracy project, implemented by ISAR Ednannia, funded by Norway and Sweden. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of UAME and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the Government of Norway, the Government of Sweden and ISAR Ednannia.  

Background information
The Ukrainian Association of Music Events (UAME) is a non-governmental organization founded in Kyiv in 2019 by music industry professionals. UAME works to develop Ukraine’s music sector, create an open and sustainable environment for its community, and promote Ukrainian music both nationally and internationally. 

Music Saves Ukraine is a charitable initiative launched by UAME on March 1st, 2022 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since then, it has been supported by around 100 music events across Europe — from professional music conferences to large-scale festivals — uniting the international music community around supporting Ukraine.

by Nikki