Olha Oriekhova is a violinist from Donetsk whose story has become a symbol of strength, tenderness and rebirth.
The war forced her to leave her home city to save her child, and in 2022 she began a new life in Italy. Her first years were filled with work wherever she could find it, but her greatest loss was the enforced silence without music — a silence in which part of herself was lost.
Returning to the violin meant returning to life for Olha.
As she touched the strings again, she felt her home, her memory and her voice coming back to her along with the music. Today Olha performs on Capri — in hotels, at weddings, at chamber and charity concerts — giving her listeners music filled with sincerity and life.
On 19 November 2025 she performed in Rome at the forum
“Protect the Children – Protect the Future”, organised by the European Parliament Office in Italy and the National Congress of Ukrainian Associations in Italy.
During an art performance by the painters Olena Hromova and Liudmylka Horbachyk, her playing held the hall spellbound. Olha’s music became a bridge, both tender and painful, between the themes the artists explored: home, loss, and a childhood that war undermines from within.
These themes resonate especially deeply with Olha herself — a woman from an occupied territory who knows the price of loss and the price of hope.
Her music is more than a performance.
It is a journey from pain to light, from exile to rebirth.
It is the voice of a woman who, despite everything, goes on creating beauty and reminding us
that wherever music sounds, there is always a chance for the light to return.
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