THE THINGS WE DO...

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

New ancient Ukrainian music

There is complete silence, then a collective sigh of pleasure from the whole audience and only then the enthusiastic applause. Alexis Kochan and her Paris to Kyiv ensemble have finished another song. This music is comfortable, jazzy, innovative and not at all traditional.

The ensemble is led by singer Msr. Kochan, with musicians Julian Kytasty, Richard Moody, Martin Colledge and Nenad Zdjelar. It is classified as "world music" in the stores, but that is an inadequate description.

Last summer the third Paris to Kyiv album, "Prairie Nights and Peacock Feathers," was launched. It continues the tradition of the successful and critically acclaimed earlier albums, "Paris to Kiev" (1994) and "Paris to Kyiv Variances" (1996), as well as Ms. Kochan's first solo album, "Czarivna" (1983).

So what kind of music is this? This is familiar music, and yet something you have never heard before. It sure is easy to listen to, but it definitely is not easy-listening or sing-along. Whether listening to the album, or watching the concert, you feel the ease, the gentleness of the presentation, with no hype - and yet there is intensity in the beauty of the melodies, the virtuosity of the singing and the playing, and in the simple yet intricate arrangements.

You lose a lot if you do not pay attention to all the details, and each time you hear a song, you find another facet to delight in and admire. You do not need to know Ukrainian folk songs to love this music, but if you do, it adds another dimension of appreciation. In performance you never hear a song the same way twice, because these virtuosos play without sheet music, the melodies memorized, then improvised each time.

At a recent concert at the University of Winnipeg, Ms. Kochan concluded "Cross. Cradle. Tree" with an extended note, and Mr. Moody seamlessly continued the exact sound of the voice on the viola - a moment I still remember and relish, and yet one they do not really remember.

In addition to folk songs, Ms. Kochan searches out ritual songs: the pre-Christian koliadky and schedrivky (winter cycle), hahilky and vesnianky (spring cycle), Kupalo songs (Midsummer's Night), songs for obzhynky (harvest), wedding songs, lullabies and laments. Some early religious chants are included for good measure.

Ms. Kochan selects the songs - often with suggestions from Julian Kytasty, who also knows where to find them - mulls over the arrangements and presents the songs to her musicians. Then they work on each song's instrumentation collectively. Ms. Kochan and Mr. Kytasty are the two ensemble members who know Ukrainian, so the lyrics and background have to be explained to the others.

Each of the musicians is an accomplished master in his own right, bringing his talents and passion to the ensemble. In Paris to Kyiv, their individual excellence creates something even greater than the whole. What is remarkable is their respect and admiration for each other, and their creative interaction.

Danny Schur, the new recording's co-producer says that they are "excellent musicians who play off each other, as if they had been playing together for centuries."

Mr. Kytasty, a member of the Kytasty family bandura nobility, sings, plays the sopilka, kobza and many banduras, and is the primary arranger and "band leader" (he says it in quotes). He brings to the ensemble both his creativity and his enormous wealth of knowledge of Ukrainian music. Like Ms. Kochan, he is rooted in tradition, but has also put down roots in contemporary and improvisational music. Mr. Kytasty has released a number of albums, in traditional and innovative bandura music. His newest, with Michael Andrec and Jurij Fedynsky, is "Experimental Bandura Trio," in which the bandurists "develop a contemporary musical language for this ancient instrument" (available on Amazon.com or by contacting [email protected]).

Mr. Kytasty is now based in New York City, teaching bandura in the Metropolitan area. He has worked on revitalizing the New York School of Bandura, now 31 years old and directed by Ivan Lechitsky, and is involved in many other music projects.

Mr. Kytasty and Ms. Kochan have known each other for a long time and are good friends. They have performed together at many concerts, workshops and music camps.

When Ms. Kytasty lived in Winnipeg, where he taught liturgical music at St. Andrew's College at the University of Manitoba, Ms. Kochan was beginning work on "Paris to Kyiv Variances." They worked together on that album and on the new one. Mr. Kytasty says the process has been similar for both projects, with the two searching for material and starting with a core repertoire.

Ms. Kochan usually selects a song, works out "something" on the piano and then decides which musician she will work with first. Often this is Mr. Kytasty. They discuss their ideas, preparing multiple arrangements - both duet and ensemble - for each number. But the arrangements are open-ended.

"You bring the arrangements to the musicians, find a spot for them in the music, and then they start to think and develop their own parts, their own voices - I try to keep the musicians from getting in each other's way, with each taking a turn coming in and out," says Ms. Kochan. Yet in the end "there is no democracy." She has the final word.

Mr. Kytasty notes that the ensemble was fortunate to have a residency at the St. Norbert Arts and Cultural Center in 2000, working intensively on the songs for "Prairie Nights and Peacock Feathers," culminating in a concert at the former Trappist Monastery ruins that summer.

It was fortunate that Ms. Kochan knew Mr. Moody's mother, a music educator. After hearing him play, Ms. Kochan invited him to join Paris to Kyiv. At first the music was foreign to him and just a gig, but he developed an affinity with and familiarity with it, and grew into Ukrainian music. The classically trained musician plays viola, violin and guitar, and sings, composes and arranges. He is well-known and respected in the music community, as a soloist, a member of the Acoustically Inclined and Trivocals Jazz Ensemble, and as an accompanist for The Wyrd Sisters. He is a sessional player for other groups. His playing is reminiscent of Stephane Grappelli's jazz violin.

Mr. Moody says that since music is a common language he has no problems in not understanding the lyrics. "We have an interest in a certain sophisticated international world music which is so good," he observes.

Mr. Colledge is the only one of the ensemble who has a day job outside of music. In his other life he is a podiatrist (he says he does this "to subsidize my musical career") and is fortunate to be in a practice with colleagues, which gives him the opportunity to travel with the group. Mr. Colledge is originally from England and has specialized in Celtic music, playing Irish and Scottish melodies on the cittern, mandolin and the Northumbrian small pipes, which evoke the sound of a Ukrainian duda (bagpipe).

He enjoys the blend of the Celtic and Ukrainian sounds in some tracts - "it's pretty noticeable and it works," he says.

If he had to pick a favorite piece, it would be "Bukovynka," during which he plays the pipes. "I love playing it and find it very moving," he says. Mr. Colledge is happy that Mr. Zdjelar joined the group as the bass player, because he likes the effect of the bass in the combined sound.

"More and more, the group has matured over time, and we have such a strong respect for each other. Each of us knows when to back off, and we work very democratically. With the wealth of good creativity, everyone's ideas are taken into consideration, and for a band, that is very important," he explains.

Mr. Zdjelar is the newest member of Paris to Kyiv. The classical musician and his physicist wife arrived in Canada from Yugoslavia in 1998. He was a bass player in the Yugoslavian National Theater and Opera Orchestra, and played in jazz and blues clubs (which he has continued in Winnipeg).

"Paris to Kyiv is something new for me, but it is close to what I used to play, and I like it. You do not have to be Ukrainian to love this music, but you benefit by understanding [the Slavic soul]. This music is close to my heart," he continued. Mr. Zdjelar echoes the other musicians in saying how easy their cooperation is and how everyone works for the best for all.

Mr. Schur is the wunderkind of discovering, producing and promoting musical talent. In his cap and jeans, he certainly looks like a kid, instead of the multi-talented 33-year-old father of a young daughter. Along with Ms. Kochan, he is the co-producer and the recording engineer of this and previous Paris to Kyiv albums. In Canada, he is also known for discovering Chantal Kreviazuk, as well as up-and-coming pop and country artists. He is also an accomplished composer and lyricist and a Juno Award winner (Canada's Grammies). He presented "The Bridge: The Musical," the Ukrainian-flavored rock opera, written and composed in Winnipeg last fall and is searching for more backers to take the show on the road.

Mr. Schur cannot praise Ms. Kochan more: "Alexis has one of the clearest visions of the scope of Ukrainian music, not just historically, but also as it relates to contemporary society. She is singlehandedly attempting to de-ghettoize Ukrainian musical traditions into a true world music context. Her execution of the vision is first-rate in everything from the passion of her singing and choice of world-class musicians, right down to the last details of the individual pieces on the CD."

The admiration is mutual, because Ms. Kochan says "Danny has a very very good set of ears, brilliant technically. In the studio, he understands enough Ukrainian and hears the words and tells me if I am vocally on the right track. He is a feedback system for me. We do the mix together. His ears are great, he hears everything - things I do not hear at all. He also masters the whole thing."

At the center of this mass of talent is Ms. Kochan, with not only a lush honeyed voice, but the love, knowledge, passion and drive to get this music across to the whole world. This North-end Winnipeg kid chose to give up her career in psychology, just a bit before finishing her Ph.D., to pursue her passion of singing and promoting old Ukrainian music.

On a 1978 visit to Ukraine with the Oleksander Koshetz Choir of Winnipeg, Ms. Kochan had a revelation that Ukrainian folk and ritual music was to be her life. She was so moved in being in Kyiv, in her ancestral homeland, that she decided to return there to study music. She and her husband, Nestor Budyk, spent a year in Kyiv studying with the Veriovka company.

Even though she had been surrounded by Ukrainian folk songs at home and does not remember ever not singing, "this Canadian kid did not have a sense of being Ukrainian, did not know songs that were 3,000 years old," she says. Ms. Kochan remembers weeping along with the rest of the audience at a Nina Matviyenko concert, listening to an ancient lament. A few decades later, on the upcoming album, she sings her own version of a lament. In Kyiv she was drawn to the ancient pre-Christian ritual songs, wondering why she had not heard them before.

Soon after returning to Winnipeg, she collaborated with Arthur Polson on her the album "Czarivna." Mr. Polson arranged the music and composed interludes to this album of wedding, Kupalo, obzhynky, and winter-cycle songs. Anatoliy Avdiyevsky, the director of Veriovka, remarked that Mr. Polson must have had some Ukrainian in him to capture the essence of these songs.

Why the name Paris to Kyiv? During her first trip to Kyiv, just after Paris, Ms. Kochan thought of how Kyiv could have been the Paris of the East, were it not for history. "I realized how powerless we have been for centuries. I like to think I'm helping people to come alive again," she said.

The first Paris to Kiev [sic] album was released in 1994 with Nestor Budyk on accordion, Alexander (Sashko) Boytchuk, an internationally renowned jazz saxophonist and clarinetist, and Petro Yourashcuk, fiddler and wind instrumentalist extraordinaire. This album was a wonderful fusion of Ukrainian and Ukrainian Canadian music and musicians. Paris to Kyiv Variances (1996) expanded the horizons of this "new" ancient Ukrainian music with the present ensemble of Mr. Kytasty, Mr. Colledge, Mr. Moody, Harry Zacharias (udu drum) and Evans Coffee (congas and djembe). This album expanded the group's audience and was featured often on various CBC programs and in films. A reviewer noted that it "weaves together pre-Christian ritual songs and harmonies inspired by folk polyphony, with fragments of medieval chant and with contemporary influences from polytonality to jazz in a multi-layered fabric of voices and instruments."

Ms. Kochan and Mr. Kytasty are musical soul-mates. They equally understand, respect and love Ukrainian music. This mutual benevolent obsession is obvious in their work on the albums and on stage. The two have collaborated also in print.

They are proud to have expanded the listing on Ukrainian music in the second edition of "Rough Guide to World Music" from two paragraphs to a few pages. They have performed together, and at times with the whole ensemble, in Europe, throughout Canada and in the United States. In the last years Paris to Kyiv was featured at the Embassy of France in Washington, the Showcase of Culturally Diverse and First Nations Artists (at Harbourfront Centre, sponsored by the Council for the Arts), the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec, the World Music Institute in New York and the Carpenter Center in California. In May 2000 the ensemble was featured in Los Angeles in "Night Songs from a Neighboring Village: Traditional and Ukrainian and New Jewish Music," along with Brave New World. On the same trip they performed at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Paris to Kyiv has a website (www.paristokyiv.com) designed by Ron Sawchuk, a descendant of Ukrainian pioneers in Canada. He is also an accomplished painter; an adaption of his commissioned painting inspired by the music is the album cover for "Prairie Nights and Peacock Feathers."

The title of the album recognizes the blend of the music which after more than a century has become Canadian, from the heartland of Canada settled by Ukrainians; and refers to the peacocks mentioned in the pre-Christian koliadky still sung in Canada and recorded on this and other albums.

All the musicians are prairie musicians, very affected by the Ukrainian Canadians here. Ms. Kochan feels that this new album defines the Canadian prairies, that it is the definitive prairie project connected to the Ukrainian steppes.

In addition to being the producer of her albums, Ms. Kochan is also the distributor, heading her company Olesia Productions. She says she would like to have a major distributor for her albums, but wants control over the quality. She has often been compared to Loreena McKennitt, another Manitoban, in her musical style and independent marketing. To this writer, however, Ms. Kochan's music is much more vibrant and varied. In addition to being extremely talented and knowledgeable, she knows what she wants and works intently towards her goals. She loves this music and wants to bring it to as many people in the world as possible.

For the future, Ms. Kochan hopes to continue recording and performing, and one dream is to perform in Ukraine. While planning her tour to Ukraine and other parts of Europe, she explains that she doesn't want to make a penny on this, but just wants to go there to give the people hope that this Ukrainian music from Ukraine will enter the world music scene.

Ms. Kochan emphasizes that this is soul music at its most basic. This is our soul music which we must proudly share with the rest of the world.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 15, 2001, No. 28, Vol. LXIX

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