OBITUARY: Petro Honcharenko, longtime president of Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus (11/26/00)

OBITUARY: Petro Honcharenko, longtime president of Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus

by Anatoli W. Murha, Oleh Mahlay, Arnold Birko and Wolodymyr Murha

SOUTH BOUND BROOK, N.J. - On September 19, following a brief illness, Petro Honcharenko, the longtime president and administrator of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus (UBC) passed away.

The funeral and interment took place at St. Andrew's Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in South Bound Brook, N.J. on September 25 .

Oleh Mahlay, the UBC's artistic director and conductor, Anatoli W. Murha, president, and members of the UBC from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ontario and other communities in eastern Canada and the United States bid him farewell with the chorus's traditional "Chuyesh Brate Miy."

Petro Honcharenko was born on December 11, 1910, in the village of Olshanytsia near Kyiv. His interest, enthusiasm and aptitude towards music were demonstrated at an early age. When he first saw and heard the bandura at the age of 12, he set forth to build his own. With diligence and persistence, Mr. Honcharenko mastered playing his wonderful instrument without formal training. Unknowingly, he had dedicated himself to a lifetime of perpetuation of the bandura art.

While in Germany in 1945, Mr. Honcharenko was accepted into the UBC as an instrumentalist, vocalist and a builder of banduras. Between 1945 and 1949 the Honcharenko brothers, Petro and Alexander, built over 50 banduras for the chorus and Leontovych Choir.

The UBC emigrated to the United States in 1949 and settled in Detroit. During this transition to America, Mr. Honcharenko was elected by the membership president and administrator.

Mykola Kaharlytskyj, writing in (1995) cites Mr. Honcharenko as saying that the UBC had become his beloved wife. As president and administrator he had endless responsibilities, ranging from soliciting sponsors and operating funds, to planning concerts and tours; from acquiring costumes and instruments to producing records and audio cassettes. Mr. Honcharenko was quoted as saying: "I think I succeeded, for our concert performances were successful with rave reviews from the press. I invested my health and energy in the best interest of the UBC's tradition of instrumental and choral excellence."

Mr. Honcharenko dedicated over 40 years to the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus. From 1949 to 1989 he oversaw 34 concert tours on three continents and arranged 550 concerts. But Mr. Honcharenko's dedication and vision did not concern itself only with the present, but also the future. To assure that the UBC had future generations of instrumentalists and vocalists, he supported and encouraged the organization of bandura camps. He provided instruction, and shared his engineering skills in bandura construction with academics and future bandura builders, among them Yukhym Pryjmak, Pavlo Stepovyj, Vasyl Hirich and Bill Vetzel, who still continues the tradition of building the chromatic Honcharenko bandura.

In 1992 Ukraine's Ministry of Culture recognized Mr. Honcharenko for furthering the refinement of the bandura instrument, and the propagation of "kobzarske mystetstvo" by naming him Honored Artist of Ukraine. With this decree, the government of Ukraine underscored Petro Honcharenko's lifetime achievements as important and significant in the annals of bandura development and artistry.

With the death of Mr. Honcharenko, the UBC has lost not only a soloist, bandura builder and cherished president and administrator, but a luminary of bandura arts. Petro Honcharenko will no doubt be enshrined in the history of bandura musicology in America.

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