Chicago Children's Choir completes 11-day tour of Ukraine (07/20/97)

Chicago Children's Choir completes 11-day tour of Ukraine

by Marta Farion

CHICAGO - The Chicago Children's Choir returned home on June 7 from a successful 11-day tour of Ukraine a project that was coordinated between the Chicago-Kyiv Sister Cities Committee, Ukraine's Consulate General in Chicago and, in Kyiv, the Office of the Mayor and the Department of Culture. Immediately after its return, the choir performed the Kyiv program and shared its experiences of Ukraine with a full auditorium of family and enthusiastic fans at the Chicago Cultural Center.

The choir was founded in 1956 and conducts a comprehensive program for children and young people promoting education in music, and community and cultural development in a family-like environment. The choir's headquarters are located in one of Chicago's architectural landmarks, the beautiful 100-year-old Cultural Center, which also serves as the office of the Sister Cities Intemational Program. As American cultural ambassadors, the children, who represent Chicago's multiracial and multicultural population, perform American songs as well as songs in the language of the country they visit.

The Ukrainian tour began in Kyiv during the Kyiv Days Festival at the end of May. The setting of beautiful spring weather, flowering chestnut trees and Kyiv's festive mood provided the best possible environment for a touring company and for the audience. The choir performed at the opening of the first McDonald's restaurant in Kyiv on May 23 and the occasion was an ideal pairing of the Chicago-based corporation with the Chicago choir. The group, which consisted of 42 children and seven adults, also performed on Kyiv's Independence Square, at the Kyiv Conservatory, at the Kyiv Children's Music Academy, at a children's hospital and at Kyiv's Outdoor Performing Arts Center.

This last concert was one of the highlights of the tour; the children performed to an audience of more than 20,000 with many foreign and local dignitaries in attendance.

The performance included the Ukrainian and American national anthems, American songs and also, in flawless Ukrainian, "Oy, Khodyla Divchyna", "Zapovit" and "Tyzh Mene Obmanula." The children took turns announcing the songs in both Ukrainian and English.

The impact on the audience of hearing American children speaking and singing in Ukrainian, with perfect diction and ease, was profound. Numerous members of the Ukrainian armed forces present at the concert saluted throught the singing of the anthems and threw their hats into the air after the conclusion; the audience applauded at length and with visible emotion. The concerts finished with a blues song and a perfect finale, an outstanding rendition of the famous song "Chicago."

The choir continued its tour of Ukraine with a performance in Kaniv on the steps of the famous monument to Taras Shevchenko, where the choir placed flowers and sang the "Zapovit." The choir members toured the Shevchenko museum and read "Zapovit" in various languages, including Korean, Spanish and English.

The choir also sang at a national conference of Shevchenko scholars; the scholars were visibly surprised and moved by the Americans singing the Ukrainian national anthem and other Ukrainian songs.

In Kaniv, the choir performed in a school auditorium for over 800 children at the closing of the school year and here, too, many local children clearly did not know the words to the Ukrainian national anthem and were surprised at the Americans who mastered the melody and the words with such ease.

The Ukrainian tour proceeded to Cherkasy, a beautiful historic city where the choir performed to over 300 at a sanatorium for children affected by the Chornobyl disaster. The American and Ukrainian children spent time together, helping each other, and the Ukrainian children who spoke English acted as interpreters.

The American visitors were impressed with the emphasis on education for children, the love for children and the attention paid to children's programs in Ukraine. As an example they cited the Cherkasy Children's House of Culture, where all the walls are wood carved with depictions of children's stories and houses, a children's library, a museum of children's works, and a section on natural history, science and industry; the signs are in both Ukrainian and English. The Cherkasy visit culminated with a concert at the Shevchenko Theater. When the Chicago Children's Choir boarded the bus back to Kyiv, they were surrounded with a sea of people who came to bid them farewell with flowers, a particularly impressive Ukrainian tradition.

The talent and efforts of the choir's director, Daniel Wallenberg, as well as volunteers such as Lida Truchly and Dr. Vasyl Truchly, who prepared the music and the lyrics phonetically, and Vera Eliashevsky and Bohdan Watral were essential to the success of the tour.

The choir's director, Nancy Carston, expressed her enthusiasm about the Ukrainian tour and said this was not just a tour, this was a love exchange with the Ukrainian people.

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