It is a great honour to be Chairman of the Kyiv Festival and I take great pleasure in welcoming you all to this year's event. The Festival has matured well over the past few years and I know that this year's will be full of excitement and outstanding music. It is a great event and the audiences will be in for a magical experience.

The first Festival in 2004 was firmly linked to the Benjamin Britten International Violin Competition, which was held in London later the same year. The second edition of that competition will take place in April 2008 and I hope that many of the young performers playing in Kyiv this year will enter the London competition. Four entered the first competition and did extremely well: perhaps a Ukrainian will win next time.

Festivals like this one take a huge amount of time and effort to organise and I should like to thank, on behalf of all those who will be enjoying the results, the individuals who have worked tirelessly to put it all together.

With much pleasure I am supporting the Fourth Edition of the Kyiv Festival. As in previous years the programme offers a wonderful variety of music from many different traditional and contemporary composers. It is both heartening and inspiring that so many talented and passionate musicians dedicate their lives to bring joy and consolation, with music to uplift the spirit of all listeners.

As a Dutchman I am also particularly happy with the generous support of the Royal Netherlands Embassy to make this year's Kyiv Festival an even bigger success than previous editions.