Julian Kytasty | |
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Юліян Китастий | |
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| Born | January 23, 1958 |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, singer, kobzar, conductor |
Julian Petrovych Kytasty [a] is an American composer, singer, kobzar, bandurist, flautist, and conductor of Ukrainian descent. [1] He was born January 23, 1958, in Detroit, Michigan, in a family of refugees.
His first studies were in the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, in which his father, uncles and grandfather played in and conducted before him. He has been a resident of New York City since 1980. He moved there to found the New York Bandura Ensemble (which also at various times included minimalist composer-bandurist Michael Andrec, composer-lutenist Roman Turovsky-Savchuk, [2] vocalists Gisburg and Natalia Honcharenko, and kobzar Jurij Fedynskyj), and began a career as a solo artist and bandura teacher that has taken him all over the world, from the Inuit lands to Patagonia. In 1989 he was invited to tour Ukraine, performing over a hundred concerts as a soloist as well as with a bandura ensemble, participating in the Chervona Ruta festival. [3]
Kytasty holds a master's degree in music (Composition, Theory and Voice) from Concordia University in Montreal (his undergraduate studies were in military history). He is the author of original compositions and arrangements that have entered the standard repertoire of bandurists around the world. He has been described as "the finest representative of the kobzar tradition in the Western Hemisphere". [4]
He has also created and conducted avant-garde music for instrumental groups, choirs, and incidental music for dance and theatrical performances, notably for New York's Yara Arts Group in collaboration with Virlana Tkacz. Julian is a frequent speaker on the bandura and its tradition.
He has been a guest lecturer at many universities including Yale, Harvard, Wesleyan, and the University of California.
Kytasty has recorded for London's November Music label: Black Sea Winds – Music of the Kobzari of Ukraine. [5] He also has collaborated with Canadian singer Alexis Kochan and their ensemble Paris to Kyiv on two CDs, [6] Chinese pipa player Wu Man, Mariana Sadovska, Brave Old World and has recorded with his own group The Experimental Bandura Trio.
In 2003 he recorded a solo interpretation on the bandura of John Zorn's composition "Kadmut" which can be found on the third volume of the Masada 10 Years Special Edition entitled "The Unknown Masada" (Tzadik 7181). [7]
Ukrainian music covers diverse and multiple component elements of the music that is found in the Western and Eastern musical civilization. It also has a very strong indigenous Slavic and Christian uniqueness whose elements were used among the areas that surround modern Ukraine.
A bandura is a Ukrainian plucked-string folk-instrument. It combines elements of the zither and lute and, up until the 1940s, was also often called a kobza. Early instruments had 5 to 12 strings and resembled lutes. In the 20th century, the number of strings increased initially to 31 strings (1926), then to 56 strings – 68 strings on modern "concert" instruments (1954).
A bandurist is a person who plays the Ruthenian plucked string instrument known as the bandura.
Hnat Martynovych Khotkevych was a Ukrainian theater and public figure, engineer, inventor, writer, historian, translator, ethnographer, art critic, playwright, screenwriter, composer, musicologist, violinist, pianist, baritone, bandurist, and teacher. He was shot by the KGB, like many other members of the Executed Renaissance, during Joseph Stalin's Great Terror in the Soviet Union.
The Kyiv Bandurist Capella is a male vocal-instrumental ensemble that accompanies its singing with the playing of the multi-stringed Ukrainian folk instrument known as the bandura.
The Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus is a semi-professional male choir which accompanies itself with the multi-stringed Ukrainian ethnic instrument known as the bandura. It traces its roots to Ukraine in 1918 and has been based in the USA since 1949.
Kobzars and bandurists were a unique class of musicians in Ukraine, who travelled between towns and sang dumas, a meditative poem-song. Kobzars were usually blind, and required the completion of a three-year apprenticeship in specialized Kobzar guilds, in order to be officially recognized as such. In 1932, on the order of Stalin, the Soviet authorities called on all Ukrainian Kobzars to attend a congress in Kharkiv. Those that arrived were taken outside the city and were all put to death.
Vasyl Kostovych Yemetz was a Ukrainian bandurist. He was founder and initial director of the Kobzar Choir in 1918 - the direct protégé of the Kyiv Bandurist Capella and the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus.
Hryhory Ivanovych Bazhul was a Ukrainian bandurist and publisher of articles on bandura history from Poltava, Russian Empire. After World War II he emigrated to Australia settling in Sydney.
Yevhen Oleksandrovych Adamtsevych was a prominent blind Ukrainian bandurist.
Victor Yuriiovych Mishalow is an Australian-born Canadian bandurist, educator, composer, conductor, and musicologist.
Hryhoriy Trokhymovych Kytasty was a Ukrainian émigré composer and conductor. In 2008, he was honored with the Hero of Ukraine state decoration.
Peter Deriashnyj is a Ukrainian Australian bandurist, composer of secular and sacred music, and choral conductor. He specializes in the Kharkiv style of bandura playing, but also plays folk and rock guitar.
A Kuban bandurist is a person who plays the Ukrainian plucked string instrument known as the bandura, who is from Kuban, a geographic region of southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River.
The Canadian Bandurist Capella is a vocal-instrumental ensemble that combines the sounds of male choral singing with the orchestral accompaniment of the multi-stringed Ukrainian bandura. Originally established as "Toronto Bandurist Capella" in 2001, the ensemble has been performing under the name "Canadian Bandurist Capella" since 2004. It is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Pop music in Ukraine is Western influenced pop music in its various forms that has been growing in popularity in Ukraine since the 1960s.
Oleh Mahlay is an American violinist, pianist, bandurist, choral conductor and lawyer of Ukrainian ethnicity. Mahlay has made a significant contribution to Ukrainian emigre music, primarily through his work with the Ukrainian bandura and the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus. Merited Figure of Arts of Ukraine.
Alexis Kochan is a Ukrainian–Canadian composer and singer. She was born in 1953 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Ukrainian immigrants.
Yuriy Fedynsky is a Ukrainian-American composer, musician, singer-songwriter, producer, bandleader, luthier, cultural activist, and pedagogue. Fedynsky performs on kobza, torban, and traditional bandura.
Kobzarska Sich is a summer music camp devoted to learning bandura and Ukrainian choral music. Kobzarska Sich is held every August at All Saints Camp in Emlenton, Pennsylvania. In its current format, four courses are offered: Bandura Course, Junior Bandura Workshop, the Ukrainian Choral Workshop, and the Ukrainian Sacred Music Workshop.
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