Shmurak — book 'Modern Listening: How to Hear Contemporary Music'

Oleksii Shmurak presents the academic book 'Modern Listening: How to Hear Contemporary Music' on 14 May 2026 at Vivat publishing house (Kharkiv). This is a 380-page first Ukrainian academic guidebook to listening to contemporary academic music — from late 20th century (from Schoenberg and Stockhausen) to 2025. The book is written for an audience 'culturally curious but without musicological education' — to help non-musicians approach contemporary composers. Book structure: 5 parts: I. 'Decay of Tonality' (Debussy, Schoenberg, Webern); II. 'Electroacoustics' (Stockhausen, Schaeffer, Boulez); III. 'Minimalism and Post-' (Reich, Glass, Adams); IV. 'Spectralism' (Grisey, Murail, others); V. 'Contemporary Ukraine' (Sylvestrov, Stankovych, Skoryk, Zahaikevych, Shmurak, and others — see PR2, PR4, PR9 for context). Each part includes 12-15 'listening cards' with QR codes to specific video recordings of work performance + analysis of listening experience. The preface was written by Yevhen Stankovych (People's Artist of Ukraine — see PR4). Afterword — Helmut Lachenmann (Germany, Siemens Prize laureate — see PR5 about his collaboration with Kurbasy). The book contains exclusive interviews with 8 leading contemporary composers: Sylvestrov (Vienna), Stankovych (Kyiv), Zahaikevych (Kyiv), and 5 foreign. First print run — 8000 copies, price — 480 UAH. English translation is planned through German academic publisher Bärenreiter in 2027.