CONCERT NOTES: Taras Kulish performs Wesolowsky selections (12/11/05)

CONCERT NOTES: Taras Kulish performs Wesolowsky selections

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

It was a jewel of an evening - a sold-out select crowd, brilliant accompanists, an elegant setting and a singer with a voice you could listen to forever. Bass-baritone Taras Kulish of Montreal finished up his working visit to Winnipeg with a recital at Oseredok, the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Center, on Sunday, November 6.

His recital was called "Namaliuy Meni Nich" or "Paint the Night," and played to a sold-out audience in the art gallery of Oseredok.

Mr. Kulish had just completed singing Colline in the successful Manitoba Opera run of "La Boheme," and before departing for Montreal generously presented this musical evening to the community. In the first part of the program, he sang arias from Ukrainian, French and English operas and musicals. He explained that he sang them in the order in which he learned his first languages in his native Montreal. He was accompanied on the piano by Shannon Hiebert.

After intermission - and here is where the name of the recital comes in, from one of the well-known waltzes - Mr. Kulish sang 12 songs by Bohdan Wesolowsky, also of Montreal. He was accompanied by Ms. Hiebert, and also by Ian Hodges on guitar. The bass-baritone was powerful in the arias, and lyrically romantic and gentle in the Wesolowsky songs.

Introducing Mr. Kulish, Bohdana Bashuk, the executive administrator of Oseredok, reminisced about how she and so many Ukrainians grew up to the tangos, waltzes, foxtrots and rumbas of Wesolowsky.

This writer remembers dancing to these beautiful and catching melodies at dances in Newark, N.J., and at the Ukrainian American Youth Association's (SUM) resort in Ellenville, and her father collecting the 78s of all these songs. The melodies and lyrics have never been forgotten.

To the delight of the audience, Mr. Kulish said he was in the process of recording an album of Wesolowsky songs, which "will take all of 2006 to get done, so it will probably be available in the fall of 2006 or the beginning of 2007 at the very latest."

As an aside and connection to the past, He noted that some of the original recordings had Mr. Kulish's aunt, Myrosia Verbytska, singing some Wesolowsky songs.

Mr. Kulish dedicated the second half to Lorne and Kathleen Campbell, the parents of his close friend, Duncan Campbell, who was a stage manager at the Opéra de Montréal, "who passed away much too soon." Mr. Kulish added that "since his death I have become very close to his parents. They have been big supporters of mine." The Campbells were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.

Understandably, but regrettably, there was no encore. During the reception, sponsored by Carpathia Credit Union, Mr. Kulish explained that after the strenuous run of "La Boheme," this recital was enjoyable but as much as he could do. From Winnipeg, he returned to Montreal to prepare for "The Messiah" with the Orchestre Symphonique de Trois Rivieres, as bass soloist, and to the Montreal Symphony Orchestra as soloist in Nielsen's third Symphony.

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