OBITUARY: Kvitka Cisyk, 44, popular singer (04/12/98)

OBITUARY: Kvitka Cisyk, 44, popular singer

by Khristina Lew

KYIV - Singer Kvitka Cisyk, best known to the Ukrainian-speaking world for her two albums of Ukrainian folk songs, "Kvitka" and "Kvitka Two Colors," died of cancer in New York City on March 29, five days before her 45th birthday.

To the English-speaking world she was known as Kacey (from her initials, K.C.), the voice behind commercial messages for hundreds of products and institutions. It was Kacey's coloratura soprano voice that sang the slogan "Have you driven a Ford lately?" In the 1970s she also recorded two movie soundtracks, "You Light Up My Life" and "The One and Only."

Kvitka was born in Queens, N.Y., on April 4, 1953. Her father, Wolodymyr Cisyk, a concert violinist and teacher, taught her to play the violin when she was 5 years old. She told the trade magazine Ford Times in a February 1990 interview that when her father died when she was 17, she was devastated. "I had his bowing arm, his technique," she said. "I wanted to sing, but I was filled with turmoil and guilt. Shouldn't I keep playing the violin for my father?"

Kvitka was accepted to the State University of New York at Binghamton on a violin scholarship. A year later she was accepted into the Mannes School of Music on a voice scholarship. She engrossed herself in the school's opera workshop, where she studied under Sebastian Engelberg, and graduated from Mannes in 1974.

Kvitka began working in recording studios in order to pay for voice lessons, sheet music and operatic auditions. Her long list of commercials includes spots for Coca-Cola, American Airlines, Mr. Pibbs, Sears, JC Penney, Safeway grocery stores and Starburst candies. In 1982 she began working for Ford and eventually became the only voice representing Ford products. In 1990 she was regularly seen in regional Ford dealer television commercials in the western United States. She received several honors for her work with Ford, one for having recorded 20 billion consumer impressions.

Kvitka also worked as a back-up singer for such artists as Barry Manilow, Michael Bolton, Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon and Quincy Jones. But her greatest love was Ukrainian song, and in 1980 she recorded her first album, "Kvitka," which won top honors in the 1988 Ukrainian Music Awards. Her second album, "Kvitka Two Colors," was dedicated to "the spirit of the Ukrainian soul, whose wings can never be broken." Today, songs from both albums can be heard on radio in Ukraine.

Both "Kvitka" and "Kvitka Two Colors," released in 1989, were family projects. Kvitka's husband, Ed Rakowicz, a recording engineer, produced them. Her sister, Maria Cisyk, a concert pianist and teacher, played piano for them. Her mother, Ivanna, made sure that Kvitka's Ukrainian pronunciation was perfect.

In 1983 Kvitka visited Ukraine with her mother, and when Ukraine declared independence in 1991, she planned to tour her parents' homeland in a series of concerts. Her dream of touring Ukraine was never fulfilled.

Kvitka is mourned not only by family and friends, but by the millions around the world who were touched by her song.

She is survived by her husband, Ed; her 7-year-old son, Ed; her sister, Maria, with her daughters Lesia and Samantha Merley; and her uncle, Wasyl Lew, with his wife, Oksana, and their daughters, Khristina, Olesia, Ruta and Maya Lew.

Memorial services were held on both sides of the Atlantic the week following Kvitka's death. On March 30 a small private service was held on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. On April 2 a memorial service was held in the chapel at Askoldova Mohyla in Kyiv.

Kvitka's songs ... and a bus in the Karpaty