SCRUTINY | Ukrainian Art Song Project 2024 Concert Showcases Voices Of Promise
By Joseph So on August 22, 2024
Mayanna Carter, soprano; Dariyan Dubik, baritone; Nicholas Kluftinger, tenor; Polina Kornyushenko, soprano; Baille Melnyk, soprano; Olesia Shewchuk, soprano; Isabel Stanyer, piano; Anna Tanczak, soprano; Jordan Welbourne, baritone / Steven Philcox, piano; Leanne Regehr, piano. Temerty Theatre, Telus Centre for Performance and Learning, Sunday, August 18, 2024.
How time flies! Founded in 2004, the Ukrainian Art Song Project is celebrating its 20th anniversary. The goal of the UASP is to introduce to music lovers everywhere the vast treasures of Ukrainian art song. Thanks to this initiative, music lovers in Canada and around the world have been exploring and enjoying the wealth of Ukrainian Art Songs, both in live performances and in recordings.
The Ukrainian Art Song Institute, a training ground for young artists, is an offshoot of the Project. Established in 2017, a group of aspiring young artists gather each August in Toronto for a week of intensive immersion, mentored by a distinguished faculty (Benjamin Butterfield, Leanne Regehr and Melanie Turgeon). This year’s public concert is its sixth, showcasing the talent of eight singers and one pianist.
The singers this year included five sopranos, one tenor, and two baritones. They are all in or near the beginning of their vocal journey. All possess youthful and fresh voices, in various stages of development, all with good potential and eager to show the audience their vocal gift. I understand that most of them had little or no experience of singing in Ukrainian, so it was remarkable that they were able to do it so well after a relatively brief summer intensive.
The packed Temerty Theatre audience was treated to a program of 21 songs by Lopatynsky, Stepovy, Turkewich, Lysenko, Klebanov, Nyzhankivsky, Volynsky, Barvinsky, and Stetsenko. The concert concluded with a tribute to Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.
Temerty Theatre is basically a rehearsal studio, ideal for an intimate, “theatre in the round” experience, with the piano in the middle. The performers were placed in different parts of the large studio, a few seated amongst the audience.
The 21 songs range in musical style from high Romanticism of Lysenko and Stetsenko to the more angular and edgier Modernist style of Stefania Turkewich. The songs were solos and duets, with the last one sung by the ensemble, with the audience standing. The singers delivered their pieces with youthful tone and heartfelt expression. I confess I have a soft spot for the more melodically inspired pieces like “The Princess” and “A Boat Drifts On” by Lysenko, as well as “And So I Prayed” by Nyzhankivsky. But I can honestly say I enjoyed every song — Bravi tutti!
The final song on the program was “Testament” by Stetsenko, set to a poem by the eminent Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. The whole audience stood up at this point. I admit I didn’t know the significance of this, so my thanks to Daria Olynyk for sending me the information afterwards, which I am including below:
“The Testament expresses pragmatic and idealistic thoughts whose meanings have acquired ideological significance with the growing popularity of the poem. It has been sung as a national anthem and intoned as a requiem. It has been exalted as a proclamation of emancipation as well as a declaration of independence.” (From Shevchenko’s Testament by John Panchuk)
After the formal program, the audience joined the performers in a Ukrainian song, “Bozhe velykyi, yedynyi”, a prayer by Mykola Lysenko, the same song as last year that concluded the concert. We were given sheet music with the text phonetically written in English, so everyone could join in.
With the Russia-Ukraine conflict now in its third year, the Ukrainian people have endured untold suffering. Let’s hope an end to the conflict will come soon.
