Volume 21 Issue 2 - October 2015

Beat by Beat | World View
Musical Climate
Change
ANDREW TIMAR
This year’s summer
weather has drifted
gracefully on right to
the end of September. While
some 2,500 years ago the
Greek physicist-philosopher
Parmenides argued that
“nature abhors a vacuum,” it
also surely needs a rest. Or is
September slowly becoming
another August in our corner
of the concert world?
Whether or not it’s
because the seasons themselves
are shifting and
smearing established
concert-going cycles, the
warm September we have
just experienced was oddly
reminiscent of the rest of the summer music break. Several series
of concerts with a world music component, and a hint of summer
to them, are commencing in late September or even October.
These include the Small World Music Festival, Music Gallery’s X
Avant Festival, and concerts at Massey Hall, the Aga Khan Museum
and the always well-attended noon-hour shows at the COC’s
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. And Kingston, Ontario’s new
jewel of a venue, the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts,
launches the premiere concert of its Global Salon Series this month.
Welcome aboard!
Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus: Before I touch on a few of those
concerts however, and departing from my usual chronological presentation,
I would like to explore the fascinating story of the Ukrainian
Bandurist Chorus. On October 24 it is presenting “Celebrating the
Bandura: Past, Present and Future” at Massey Hall with Ruslana,
its Ukrainian guest star. The UBC is an American-Canadian group
with a history spanning two continents, but it also has a strong local
membership.
Ukrainian Canadians are a significant presence in this country.
They are the ninth-largest ethnic group, representing the world’s
third-largest Ukrainian population after that of Ukraine and Russia.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became an
independent state in 1991. Canada swiftly recognized it, the first
country to do so. Strong bilateral ties, as many readers will know,
have characterized the relationship ever since. Fewer, however, may
realize that the first of these cultural links was forged generations ago.
The Detroit-based Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus’ website states
that the “first professional bandurist chorus was formed in Kyiv in
1918 during the height of the country’s brief period of independence.”
It was during the subsequent 1920s, a transformative period of
Ukrainian national awakening, that language, culture, and specifically
the UBC, “developed into a professional touring troupe,” among the
most prominent of its kind.
By the next decade, however, the UBC narrative quickly turns very
dark. Under Soviet leader “Joseph Stalin’s rule, artists and intellectuals
were arrested, exiled or executed in an attempt to eradicate every
remnant of Ukrainian culture,” states the website. “Many conductors,
chorus members and blind bandurist-minstrels were accused of
enticing the populace to nationalism and were executed ... their songs
banned throughout the Soviet Union.”
But perhaps I’ve gotten ahead of myself here. What is a bandura,
and how does its Ukrainian history tie into the group that will
perform in October at Massey Hall? Ray (Roman) Beley and Orest
Sklierenko, both veteran Toronto members of the UBC, helped me
understand a few key notions. We spoke via a conference call on
September 14.
The bandura, a kind of large-bellied lute with features of a zither, is
a “multi-string plucked instrument, the voice and soul of Ukraine,”
noted Beley. From all I’ve heard and read, the bandura is much more
than a mere musical instrument; it symbolically embodies Ukrainian
Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus
national identity, its songs
reflecting the turbulent history of
the Ukrainian people.
Pre-20th-century folk banduras
usually had fewer than two
dozen strings in diatonic tunings.
Typically handmade by the musicians,
no two banduras were
exactly the same. The oral tradition
bandurist (a.k.a. kobzar) was
a troubadour who sang a wideranging
repertoire of para-liturgical
chants (kanty), psalms, social
dances and epics (dumy) accompanying
himself on the bandura.
On the other hand the more recent
Kyiv or Kharkiv style bandura,
played in ensembles today, is a
grander affair. It possesses 65 or
more strings, some with levers enabling the bandurist to change keys
during the performance. (There’s a strong GTA connection here too. I
was intrigued to learn that among the leading contemporary bandura
designers and makers is the Oshawa native Bill Vetzal.)
Beley picks up the story. “After years of exploitation and persecution
ANDREW ZWARYCH
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