Bandurist's memory returns home to Ukraine (02/02/97)

Bandurist's memory returns home to Ukraine

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The memory of Hryhoriy Kytasty returned home to Ukraine on January 17. In the United States, Canada, Germany and Australia, he was well-known within the Ukrainian diaspora as a great composer and conductor of the Ukrainian bandurist tradition. In Ukraine, during the Soviet era, his name was rarely mentioned.

Following a sojourn shared by many World War II-era emigres that took him from Ukraine to Germany and on to North America, Maestro Kytasty landed in Detroit, where he almost single-handedly recreated the bandurist tradition within the emigre community and established or helped create many bandura schools and choruses before his death in 1984.

On the 90th anniversary of his birth in the village of Kobeliaky, Poltava region, he was honored with a grand concert at the Ukrainian House of Culture in Kyiv. An over-capacity crowd of more than 4,000 people packed the hall to hear renowned Ukrainian vocalists, bandurists and the National Bandura Chorus of Ukraine celebrate his legacy.

As Frank Sinatra might have said, "they did it his way." The late great maestro insisted that when individuals played his songs they give their own interpretations. The artists who played the first half of the program did just that, giving their own renditions of his compositions, "Lvivskiy Frahmenty" (Lviv Fragments), the haunting "Homin Stepiv" (Echo of the Steppes) and "Oy, Sich, Maty" (Oh Sich, My Mother). The performers included Liudmyla Posikira of Lviv and Kyivans Volodymyr Yesypok, Halyna Menkush, Kostiantyn Novitskyi and Hennadii Neshchotnyi, all - celebrated artists in Ukraine.

Also among them was a seeminly unlikely featured soloist, Cleveland-born Mykola (Nick) Deychakiwsky, who sang Mr. Kytasty's composition "Duma pro Symona Petliuru" to his own accompaniment on the bandura. Mr. Deychakiwsky today is the director of the Eurasia Foundation in Ukraine, but in his younger years he sang with the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, the reincarnation of the ensemble Maestro Kytasty first led in Ukraine, then established in Detroit with many of the original members.

After intermission, things really got rolling with the appearance of the National Bandurist Choir of Ukraine, conducted by Mykola Hvozd.

Among the Kytasty compositions they performed was a rousing rendition of "Pisnia pro Tiutiunnyka" (Song about Tiutiunnyk). A centerpiece of the repertoire of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of Detroit, the song was met with hearty applause .

Hryhoriy Kytasty is best remembered for his work in putting the incantations of some of Ukraine's mightiest wordsmiths to song: Shevchenko, Oles, Symonenko, Bahriany.

He was born in 1907. His parents suffered through the Great Famine of 1932-1933 while he studied at the Kyiv Institute of Drama and Music. When his fathered died in 1938, only his brother Ivan was allowed to attend the funeral.

An original member of the State Bandurist Cappella of the Ukrainian SSR in 1935, he became its concertmaster and assistant director in 1937. In 1941 he was named director. As World War II raged, he traveled Ukraine giving concerts, but then was conscripted into the Soviet Red Army and while serving was captured by the Germans.

He escaped the Nazi prisoner-of-war camp and returned to Kyiv, where he founded and became the first director of the Shevchenko Ukrainian Bandurist Cappella.

After being forcefully returned to Germany by the Nazis, where he and members of the ensemble served time in German concentration camps, he ended up on the American side when Germany was quartered by the victorious Allied armies. The ensemble performed for several years for Ukrainians in the displaced persons camps until 1949, when the bandurist and his group emigrated to Detroit.

In the following years, among the many achievements of the ensemble was a 1950 performance on the floor of the United States Senate and a 1980 tour of Australia with Maestro Kytasty at the helm.

The Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, as it was renamed after its move to Detroit, exists to this day and has given countless performances in the United States and Canada. For all his travels, the one place the great conductor never had a chance to play was in an independent Ukraine.

His son, Victor, who today is the director of the Kyiv-based America House, an arm of the United States Information Service in Ukraine, speaking of his father at the end of the evening said, "Today I think my father has finally returned home."

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