Concert by Cerberus Piano Trio is last of Cultural Fund's season (06/12/05)

Concert by Cerberus Piano Trio is last of Cultural Fund's season

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - The Washington Group Cultural Fund's 2004-2005 Music Series came to a close here on May 22 with a concert by the Cerberus Piano Trio, featuring pianist Mykola Suk and two of his colleagues from the faculty of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, violinist Byron Tauchi and cellist Andrew Smith.

Four days later the fund also completed its 11th year of cultural activities in the nation's capital with an exhibit of woodcuts by one of the foremost masters of that genre, Jacques Hnizdovsky.

As did the three earlier concerts in the Music Series, the last performance featured a Ukrainian musician, Mr. Suk, as well as a work by a Ukrainian composer, Myroslav Skoryk's "Recitatives and Rondo." The ensemble also played the Trio in A by Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti and the Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor by Russian composer Anton Arensky.

Mr. Suk, who began his music studies in Kyiv and later in Moscow, has performed in solo recitals and as a soloist with major orchestras worldwide. He has been on the faculties of the Kyiv and Moscow conservatories, and, since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, he has taught at the New England Conservatory in Boston and Columbia University. Currently he is assistant professor of music at the University of Nevada.

During his last appearance in Washington, at the National Gallery of Art in 2001, the Washington Post's music critic wrote that he "nearly set the keyboard on fire" in his performance of Liszt.

This was the second time this season that a Skoryk composition was included in a Music Series program. In the first concert of this series last October, the Forte String Quartet performed his Partita No. 6.

Other series performers played other Ukrainian composers. Pianist Juliana Osinchuk chose one of Dmytro Bortnyansky's sonatas for the third concert in March, and Ukrainian Canadian bass-baritone Taras Kulish included a wide range in his recital last November, from classical composers Mykola Lysenko and Semen Hulak-Artemovsky to popular song writers Oleksander Bilash and Bohdan Wesolowsky.

The Hnizdovsky exhibit at the Ukrainian Embassy showcased 50 woodcuts made by the artist between 1944 and 1981. Visitors wishing to buy his woodcuts were able to do so at the conclusion of the exhibit.

Speaking about the artist in her introductory remarks, Cultural Fund Director Svitlana Fedko Shiells highlighted the originality and lasting quality of his work. "Hnizdovsky found his very own, unique style - something every artist strives for, but few achieve."

"Jacques Hnizdovsky has been gone now for 20 years," she said, "but the interest in his art continues to grow."

The exhibit was originally planned for mid-December. It was postponed, however, because the Orange Revolution protests in Kyiv spawned demonstrations also in front of the Embassy building in Washington. Since the Fund's founding in 1994, it has organized its events in cooperation with the Embassy of Ukraine.

Other 2004-2005 Cultural Fund events included a lecture and exhibit by Ukrainian-Canadian architect Radoslav Zuk in September; in January, Larry Appelbaum, a jazz specialist and senior studio engineer at the Library of Congress, discussed the evolution of jazz in Ukraine; and in February, Washingtonians were treated to a performance by Mariana Sadovska, a vocal artist specializing in little-known songs and rituals from rural Ukrainian villages.

In addition to the Cultural Fund events, three Ukrainian-American pianists performed at other Washington venues: Thomas Hrynkiw accompanied two Austrian baritones at the National Gallery of Art, Nadia Shpachenko gave a concert at the Phillips Collection in February and Oksana Lutsyshyn paired up with violinist Natalia Kuznetsova at the Arts Club of Washington in March.

March also brought the Washington community the sad news about concert pianist Daria Telizyn, a former member of TWG. She died after a long illness in Dunedin, Fla. She was 44.

Preliminary plans for the 2005-2006 Music Series include the winners of the Horowitz International Young Pianists Competition in Kyiv, violinist Maxim Brilinsky and pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky, among others.

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