KYIV – Perhaps the highlight of the Detroit-based Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus’s (UBC) centennial tour of Ukraine was the joint concert with the local National Bandurist Capella on October 22.
About 120 artists took to the stage that evening, showcasing Ukraine’s national musical instrument, which combines characteristics of the lute and harp, producing “a sound similar to a harpsichord but with a wider range and tone,” according to the UBC website.
Both troupes are descendants of the original Kyiv Kobzar Choir that was formed in 1918 under the guidance of then-Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky and headed by bandura virtuoso Vasyl Yemetz. It splintered in 1946 after World War II. Many of the émigrés of the bandura group made Detroit their home.
The American musicians – who prefer the more complicated Kharkiv style bandura over the Kyiv or classical instruments – are combining charity work at hospitals and museums during their 11-day tour, which ended on October 28 in Lviv after giving seven concerts, including two in that city.
The group, led by artistic director and conductor Oleh Mahlay, also took part in the International Bandura Forum in Kyiv on October 19-22 that climaxed with the joint concert to a standing-room-only audience.
The Ukrainian Weekly attended the UBC concert the following day at the National Philharmonic of Ukraine as part of its 155th concert season.
Historically, the instrument, which has between 20 and 65 strings and is tuned like a piano, was used for vocal accompaniment. Its practitioners were known as kobzari, itinerant bards who sang dumy, a unique form of song that was popular among the Kozaks.
Renowned pianist and violinist Hnat Khotkevych is credited for modernizing the bandura is it is known today. He was shot by the Soviet Union’s secret police, the NKVD, in 1938. Throughout the 1930s, Ukrainian artists, writers and musicians, including the bandurists were systemically persecuted by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s henchmen. Many were arrested under false pretenses and shot or given lengthy prison sentences in Siberian labor camps.
Contrary to popular belief, they were never rounded up to attend a conference in Kharkiv where many were supposedly executed.
“That’s a myth,” Ukrainian Catholic University Professor of history Yaroslav Hrytsak told The Ukrainian Weekly. “This never happened… they were hounded and persecuted but were never completely wiped out.”
Still, UBC members in Canada and the U.S. preserved the traditional repertoires of the bandurists and continue practicing their art along with their Ukrainian counterparts in Kyiv.