TORONTO – The Canadian Bandurist Capella is embarking on an exciting era in its history this fall. The capella is presenting a concert called “Crossroads of Song” in three Ontario cities, Windsor, London and Sudbury, during October. It is the first program put together for the group by the capella’s newly appointed music director, Julian Kytasty, and it reveals the new paths the composer and bandura virtuoso plans to take with the ensemble.
“The concert program is made up of a little more than half of new material,” Mr. Kytasty explains. “It reflects that we are at a crossroads, heading in a new direction, but also acknowledging where we have been as a group.”
Mr. Kytasty was appointed to the position with the capella, consisting of a male choir and bandura musicians, earlier this year. His primary responsibility is to set a course for the ensemble: producing new music, exploring new musical directions and guiding the way the group sounds and the way in which the bandura and choir sections interact.
“A capella of bandurists is a different beast than simply a male choir with a bandura orchestra,” he says. “I am trying to come up with music that integrates those elements and creates a synergy between them so that it becomes more than the sum of its parts.”
To achieve this end, Mr. Kytasty collaborates closely with the other capella directorial team members, conductor Vasyl Turyanyn, choirmaster Pavlo Fondera and concertmaster Borys Ostapienenko.
The “Crossroads of Song” title also refers to the fact that “each of the songs in our program has travelled through time, space to get to that stage,” says Mr. Kytasty. “We have songs that have come from different historical moments, from Kozak campaigns 400 years ago to the era of Ukrainian immigration to Canada.”
Giving prominence to original music of the Kozak era through the capella’s repertoire is one of Mr. Kytasty’s goals. “Our capella has been singing songs about Kozaks but they have tended to be mostly 20th century or current compositions, about how great they were.”
Alina Kuzma
Music director Julian Kytasty works with the Canadian Bandurist Capella during a rehearsal.
The medley that opens the capella’s new program, “Kozatsky Pokhid,” is dedicated to the 400th anniversary of Hetman Petro Konashevych Sahaidachny’s military campaign, that took the Kozaks in the fall of 1618 right to the gates of Moscow. The piece is an interesting and unfamiliar version of “Oy na Hori ta Zhentsi Zhnut” (On the Hill the Sowers Sow), notes Mr. Kytasty; the text refers to Sahaidachny, the Kozak hetman, exchanging his wife for tobacco and a pipe. “It is a quintessential march song, and I think from that time and possibly from that exact campaign.”
Unearthing and presenting the gems of Ukrainian musical history, particularly of the Baroque era (17th and 18th centuries) is another one of Mr. Kytasty’s aims. “The Ukrainian Baroque was a tremendously interesting era, a time when cultural ideas from Western Europe were coming into Ukraine, especially through the major schools, the Kyiv Mohyla Academy. In Europe, people were getting excited about harmony and chords, the way we understand them now. The music was catchy, simple and beautiful and this style spread like wildfire.”
A religious song by composer Dmytro Tuptalo (1651-1709) on the
“Crossroads of Song” program is a perfect example of that style, Mr. Kytasty points out. “It’s incredibly beautiful in its melody, in its ornamentation. Right from the get-go it sounded terrific with our choir and instruments. It’s very joyful.”
Interestingly, the composer, Tuptalo, who by the end of his life became a bishop, was a contemporary who worked with Ivan Mazepa, the great leader and cultural philanthropist.
Another song on the program from that same era, “Ptashyne Vesillia” (The Wedding of the Birds), ties in with the crossroads theme as it highlights the literal crossing of paths of individuals from different social strata, which resulted in the cross-pollination of musical genres. During the Baroque period, scholars who trained at the academies travelled across the countryside as teachers and “diaky” (cantors), along the same roads as the “kobzari,” the wandering minstrels who sang and played the bandura, and met them on the way. At some point, a light-hearted song about a goldfinch marrying a chickadee, sung by the scholars, was picked up by the kobzari and passed on.
Generations later, it was still in the repertoire of the kobzar Ostap Veresai (1803-1890), by that time having evolved into an extended humorous song with dance-like instrumental accompaniment.
Veresai was such a legend in his time that the Ukrainian classical music composer Mykola Lysenko transcribed his music. The piece the capella will be performing is from a publication of those transcriptions.
Mr. Kytasty stresses that he also plans to increase Canadian content. He has included several pieces from Ukrainian Canadian musical traditions in the upcoming concert. “The Immigrant Song” was collected in Manitoba in the 1960s by the folklorist Robert Klymasz and arranged for the capella by Mr. Kytasty. “It’s about an incredibly intense situation; a man is telling his wife, ‘I have to go to Canada to make some money, and leave you and the children here,’ a dilemma that so many immigrants faced and are still facing.”
Two other numbers, “Ethelbert Wedding Song” and “Old Timer’s Polka,” are instrumental tunes from the repertoire of Boris Nowosad of Dauphin, Manitoba, who is part of the Ukrainian Canadian country and Western fiddling tradition. Mr. Kytasty met Mr. Nowosad during his years in Roblin, Manitoba teaching music at St. Vladimir’s College.
Mr. Kytasty says there is a general sense within the ensemble that “It’s time for us to live up to our Canadian Bandurist Capella name. Putting the ‘Canadian’ into the name implies a certain outreach outside of the Ukrainian community. It is a huge part of our mission, to get our music in front of general audiences and to be able to communicate to all Canadians a sense of what there is in Ukrainian culture.”
It is this focus on outreach that will see the capella going on the road, performing “Crossroads of Song” in areas of Ontario well beyond their Greater Toronto home base, and in Western Canada next spring.
Up to now, Mr. Kytasty notes, the bandura has been “a very well kept secret. It’s a wonderful instrument, and yet is not as widely known as many others. That is starting to change.” We haven’t done a particularly good job until now of exploring the depth of its tradition and how that tradition can be brought into contemporary music-making with large ensembles like the capella, as a solo instrument and one that plays with other instruments in small groups.”
“It’s a very interesting time to be a bandurist in North America and to be working with a large ensemble. The musical forms bandurist capellas are known for are conservative in nature, but it will be interesting to see how far we can take it, and what things we can do,” the new music director of the Canadian Bandurist Capella adds.
The first two concerts in the “Crossroads of Song” series were on October 13 in Windsor and the next day in London. The next concert is slated for Sudbury on October 27.
For more information about the Canadian Bandurist Capella, readers may visit: http://www.banduristy.com.