DATELINE NEW YORK: From Hutsuls to bandurists (04/23/00)

DATELINE NEW YORK: From Hutsuls to bandurists

by Helen Smindak

Cheres: toe-tapping melodies

The Hutsuls, the highlanders who live in the Carpathian Mountain region of southwestern Ukraine, are bold, boisterous, energetic, creative and musically ingenious. These characteristics were very much in evidence when the Cheres Ukrainian folk ensemble of New York gave a concert at the Ukrainian Institute of America recently, whooping it up for all the world as though the musicians were playing at a village wedding in Ukraine.

Cheres director Andriy Milavsky, who at age 5 used to play in his grandfather's band at weddings in western Ukraine, injected a wealth of personal charm and remarkable musical skills to the dual role of master of ceremonies and performer. As the seven-man orchestra tossed off swirls of toe-tapping melodies (often at mind-numbing speed), Mr. Milavsky swung nonchalantly from one native woodwind instrument to another: the 12-foot-long trembita, the clarinet, a variety of flutes, including a double flute, the "zozulka" (ocarina) and the tiny drymba, a horseshoe-shaped metallic instrument that is held between the teeth while a metallic inner strip is twanged with a forefinger.

With the last instrument, Mr. Milavsky paused to make it clear that the name commonly given to the drymba - Jew's harp - is not correct. "It should be jaw's harp," he pointed out," because it is played in the jaw."

The Cheres band encompasses the talents of Petro Horbaniuk (tsymbaly), Valeriy Zhmud (violin), Ihor Makar (viola), Peter Stan and Roman Golynsky (accordions), and Oleh Ivanyschuk (bass). The "bilyi holos" (white sound) village voice of soprano Tania Vilkha was featured in several numbers.

Founded in Kyiv in 1990, Cheres is now based in New York and concertizes actively on the East Coast, with many appearances and a recent CD ("Cheres: From the Mountains to the Steppe") to its credit. Mr. Milavsky's hope is to put together a Ukrainian show involving dance, song and music. What a fabulous idea!

Intuitive art, modern poetry

Artists, in the main, hew to one theme or subject in their paintings. Volodymyr Kovalchuk seems to have his predilection, too - wide-eyed llamas and graceful ballet dancers - until you scan his work closely and note that he includes other subjects as well.

It all jibes when you read his bio and learn that he has been doing stage designs and lighting for years, producing more than 100 set designs in a variety of theaters in Europe, the United States and Canada. His most recent set/lighting design was an assignment for a production of Dostoyevsky's "Dream of Pride" for Montreal's Infinitheatre.

Mr. Kovalchuk's quixotic portraits of long-necked llama heads on women's shoulders and a painting of a man's head and torso on the body of a rooster caught viewers' eyes during a weeklong exhibit at the Ukrainian Institute of America. Easier to understand and assimilate were his portrayals of composer Herbert von Karajan and ballet dancers Maya Plisetskaya and Vladimir Malakhov; as the viewer's eyes adjusted to hazy overlays of color, figures came into distinct focus.

A native of Volodymyr Volynsky, Ukraine, the artist studied at the Dnipropetrovsk College of Art and the Academy of Art in Latvia. An artist, set designer and teacher based in Toronto, he says his philosophical approach to painting entails the creation of an "ironic dialogue" between classical European academic tradition and the intuitive use of color and light.

The opening of Mr. Kovalchuk's show featured reading in Ukrainian and English from Yuriy Tarnawsky's second published volume of collected poetry "Yikh Nemaye" (They Don't Exist), with the author himself officiating as reader. Mr. Tarnawsky and Bohdan Boychuk, his colleague in the avant-garde group of Ukrainian emigré writers, the New York Group, discussed the book following the reading.

Mr. Tarnawsky, a member of the New York Group, Fiction Collective, a group of avant-garde American writers, and of the Association of the Writers of Ukraine, has published 19 books of poetry, seven plays and three novels in Ukrainian and English. The set/lighting design for his play "Not Medea" produced by Mabou Mines/Suite in New York in 1998, was executed by Mr. Kovalchuk.

A tribute to the late Wolodymyr Trytjak

The virtuosity of two great artists, pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky of New York and violinist Yuri Mazurkevich of Boston, was combined with emotional Brahms sonatas to create an evening of lyrically beautiful music for a recent "Music at the Institute" concert. Sponsored by Dr. Ihor and Marta Fedoriw of Allentown, Pa., the concert was a most appropriate selection as a tribute to Mrs. Fedoriw's father, the late Wolodymyr Trytjak, violinist, choir director and music teacher in Ukraine, Germany, Paraguay and the United States, and composer of marches and popular music, including "Dvi Zironky Moyi" (Two Stars of Mine) and "Autumn."

In the hands of Messrs. Mazurkevich and Vynnytsky, the three sonatas - No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78, No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100, and No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108 - gleamed like sparkling jewels. Sweet, lyrical passages gave way to livelier, more forceful tempos, then slowed and mellowed into beautiful harmonies. The final sonata ended with an energetic and dramatic flourish.

Mr. Mazurkevich, who studied with the legendary David Oistrakh, is a former member of the Kyiv State Conservatory faculty who concertized throughout the former Soviet Union and Europe. Upon emigrating to Canada in 1975, he joined the faculty of music at the University of Western Ontario. Since 1977 he has been performing with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and major orchestras in North America and Europe, and giving solo performances around the world. He was appointed professor of violin at Boston University in 1985.

Mr. Vynnytsky, whose fresh and penetrating reading of scores has been praised by both audiences and critics, has performed with leading orchestras in Ukraine, Poland and the United States. He has appeared with such noted chamber ensembles as the Leontovych String Quartet and the Lysenko String Quartet, and has collaborated with sopranos Oksana Krovytska of the New York City Opera and Maria Stefiuk of the Kyiv State Opera. An acclaimed performer at music festivals in Connecticut, New York and California, Mr. Vynnytsky has been the artistic advisor and resident pianist of the Music and Art Center of Greene County since 1996. Winner, in tandem with cellist Vagram Saradjian, of the Distinguished Artists Award in New York, he is visiting member of the piano faculty at the State University of New York in Purchase.

Out of the ordinary

Bandura afficionados and anyone with a penchant for avant-garde music will certainly want to add this new compact disc to their collections. It's the first CD recorded by the Experimental Bandura Trio, a group of exemplary bandura artists who enjoy going beyond the ordinary, namely Michael Andrec, Julian Kytasty and Jurij Fedynsky.

The threesome unveiled its CD, simply titled "Experimental Bandura Trio," in late March before an exclusive audience in an offset setting, the loft apartment of Tom O'Horgan, producer of the ground-breaking Broadway shows "Hair," "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Lenny."

Surrounded by exotic musical instruments which Mr. O'Horgan collected during travels around the world and arrayed on the walls of his loft, the bandurists held the audience spellbound with the contemporary music they have composed for the bandura. Taking their cue from the Atonal Etudes 1 and 2 taped in Brooklyn more than 40 years ago by Dr. Zynovij Shtokalko, one of the 20th century's great bandurists, they have come up with atonal compositions and contemporary arrangements of well-loved Ukrainian music.

Mesmerizing melodies are featured in Mr. Andrec's "Mosaic" and "Canticle" and Mr. Kytasty's composition "Passacaglia," involving a particular musical form: a repeating bass line and chord progression that show the influence of minimalism. The strains of a well-known Ukrainian Christmas carol are heard in "Nova Radist Variations;" dance rhythms pervade the music of "Dumadance," based on an epic ballad of Ostap Veresai, the renowned 19th century performer of Ukrainian historic and epic songs.

Among the 10 selections are the somewhat brooding "Hunter Nocturne I" and "Hunter Nocturne II," improvised by EBT during a recording session last summer at Hunter, N.Y., and Mr. Kytasty's magnificent tribute to Dr. Shtokalko's atonal experimentation "Dr. Shtok Makes House Calls."

Much of the music is performed in rapid-fire style that produces ripples of notes, involving traditional ways of strumming the bandura, as well as plucking and tremolo-playing the strings. All of it is easy to absorb and enjoy.

Mr. Kytasty says it's possible to create a new kind of music without completely jettisoning traditional methods. "We're giving the bandura a new language and exploring a variety of textures (there's an incredible potential of richness and color) without any electronic manipulation," he explains.

The CD is available at the Surma Book Store in the East Village and directly from EBT by contacting: Michael Andrec, 69 Banner St. (second floor), Highland Park, NJ 08904; e-mail, [email protected]. In Canada it is available from Zen Records, 41 Oakwood Ave. S., Port Credit, Ontario L5G 3L4.

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