Thanks for checking out my take on the ancient Ukrainian ‘shchedrivka’ folk song, known in the West as a Christmas classic. The original lyrics are about seeing the first swallow of the year, meaning that winter must be nearly over and spring is coming. The music is built around a polyrhythm – three beats in one voice overlap with two beats in the other. This creates a powerful ritual chant or dance, which was believed to bring strength and courage to anyone who heard it.

I reinterpreted the music a fair bit, so when I play it live I introduce it with a different title – Shchedryk v Hrad. Hrad is the Ukrainian word for hail or hailstorm, so you can think of it as A Swallow In A Hailstorm. Hrad is also the name the Russian army gave to their rocket-launcher tanks, which shoot a hailstorm of destruction, like those which totalled the apartment of my friend Serhii Radzetskyi and his family. This piece is dedicated to him, and my other Ukrainian friends Inna Engstrom and Vlad Chernyshov, and all those that have suffered as a result of the war.