DATELINE NEW YORK: Night songs from a neighboring village (07/18/99)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Night songs from a neighboring village

by Helen Smindak

Testifying to the complex relationship between two peoples who have existed side by side and influenced each other for centuries, two musical traditions - East European Jewish and Ukrainian - were brought together in a recent concert program at Manhattan's Symphony Space.

"Night Songs from a Neighboring Village," sponsored by the World Music Institute, featured the four-man Jewish ensemble Brave New World headed by Michael Alpert (vocals, fiddle, guitar, percussion) and the Ukrainian foursome Paris to Kyiv, led by the much-admired Canadian songstress Alexis Kochan and New York's popular bandurist/singer Julian Kytasty.

Assisting Ms. Kochan and Mr. Kytasty in presenting an exquisite program of Ukrainian liturgical and folk music were violist Richard Moody and Martin Colledge, an artist who specializes in playing the cittern (a guitar with a pear-shaped, flat-backed body, popular in Renaissance England), the mandolin and the Northumbrian pipes, similar in sound to the Ukrainian duda (bagpipes).

The second half of the program presented by Brave New World was devoted to cantorial and klezmer traditions combined with classical music and jazz. With modes and scales in Eastern European Jewish music echoing those in Ukrainian music, the presentation pointed out the close interaction between the two cultures. Melodic phrases and tempos familiar to Ukrainian ears could be distinguished in the Jewish tunes. Besides Mr. Alpert, Brave New World included Alan Berns (accordion, piano), Kurt Bjorling (clarinets) and Stuart Brotman (bass, cimbalom, tilinka, percussion).

The Paris to Kyiv ensemble wove together pre-Christian ritual songs and harmonies inspired by folk polyphony with fragments of medieval chant and modern influences. Capturing the essence of old Ukraine and ancient folk rituals were a pensive wedding ballad sung by Ms. Kochan to the accompaniment of flute music and the sweet drone of bagpipes, and another old wedding song "Tuman Yarom" a quiet, a cappella refrain in which Mr. Kytasty's mellow voice blended beautifully with Ms. Kochan's contralto.

Ms. Kochan joined in the somber vocals of "Cross, Cradle, Tree," an inspirational ode to the Madonna intoned by Mr. Kytasty. "Vocalise" highlighted wordless singing by both performers. "Stone Age Carol" begun by Ms. Kochan in slow tempo, grew faster-paced and very exciting as Mr. Kytasty added his voice and the other artists brought flute and percussion sounds into play.

The prevailing mood was serious, since many of the songs were in the minor mode. However, contrast was achieved in lively bandura selections played by Mr. Kytasty, some his own compositions based on old melodies.

The Ukrainian set ended with the upbeat "Katherine's Kolomyika" - a rapid-fire dialogue between Ms. Kochan and Mr. Kytasty, singing in the open-throat style common in villages and backed by the combined music of viola, flute and percussion instruments. When the fast-paced song concluded, there was a moment of awestruck silence before the audience broke into wild applause.

Ms. Kochan, whose dusky-voiced delivery lends an ethereal quality to her voice, has a warm, engaging personality that served her admirably in presenting explanatory remarks before each selection. The Winnipeg-based vocal teacher, singer, producer and recording artist has devoted much of her career to exploring the oldest layers of Ukrainian folk music. She was well-qualified to tell the rapt audience, "There are thousands upon thousands of folk songs - all of them incredible pieces of jewelry - that represent the spirit of the Ukrainian people."

Introducing her partners, she presented Mr. Kytasty as "my colleague and excavator, who works with me very closely and is a jewel of a human being."

At the end of the evening, Mr. Alpert brought the Jewish portion to a close with a soulfully sung rendering of "Night Songs from a Neighboring Village," a poem about the beauty of Ukrainian songs penned by the Ukrainian Yiddish poet Herts Rivkin (1908-1951).

Ms. Kochan came on state, crooning the first lines of a lovely old lullaby "Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon" (A Dream Passes by the Windows) to Mr. Kytasty's bandura strumming. Mr. Alpert joined his Ukrainian colleagues, continuing his Yiddish "Night Songs." Listeners could recognize the "Khodyt Son..." melody as the well-known ballad "Summertime," which George Gershwin composed for his musical "Porgy and Bess" after hearing the lullaby at a 1929 Carnegie Hall concert that featured the Koshetz Ukrainian National Choir.

Prior to the Symphony Space concert, the Ukrainian and Jewish ensembles were heard in interviews and performances during a one-hour session on WNYC's "New Sounds" show. The Paris to Kyiv ensemble also gave a concert at the French Embassy in Washington, an evening that "had a nice vibe and a youthful audience," according to Ms. Kochan.

While in the U.S. Ms. Kochan was also guest instructor at folk-song workshops in New York City and Hartford, Conn., conduced by Mr. Kytasty, the director of the New York Bandura Ensemble. A participant of the NYC workshop described the intensive one-day examination of Ukrainian folk songs as "a fabulous experience."

Wedding frivolity

The Shevchenko Scientific Society, like its uptown-based counterpart, the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences, is generally regarded as a serious-minded, scholarly institution involved with conferences and publishing activities. Yet it has its lighter moments, as a recent lecture at the society's trim four-story building revealed.

Natalie Kononenko, professor of folklore and East Slavic languages at the University of Virginia, discoursed on Ukrainian village wedding customs of central Ukraine, specifically those of the Cherkasy and Kyiv oblasts, which she visited last year.

Describing the Ukrainian village wedding as a complex affair with many important functions, the speaker said it cements the union between bride and groom, contains fertility symbols to ensure the couple will bear children and honors the parents who reared the young couple. The village wedding also includes many moods, from solemn religious expression to a great deal of frivolity and merry-making.

Parents assume prominent roles throughout the wedding process, Ms. Kononenko pointed out. For a couple to be engaged, a formal request must be made to the parents, who are also in charge of the wedding preparations. Parents are the first to be invited to the wedding, the bride inviting the groom's parents and he inviting hers. After the vows, the bride and groom bow to both sets of parents and often to their godparents. Parents also begin the gift-giving and the expression of good wishes that conclude ceremonial meals during wedding festivities, which usually last two to three days.

The solemn part of the wedding, Ms. Kononenko said, is followed by a period of frivolity variously called "tsyhanschyna" (gypsy fest), "kury" (chickens), "tsyhany" (gypsies) or "vechirky" (evening party). She explained that tsyhanschyna activities, which provide tension release and balance to the solemnity and seal the serious rite "with the magic of laughter," also confirm the power of the parents as well as subvert it. These activities might include a day of general thievery and mischief on the part of wedding guests or an "attack" by wedding guests on anyone who chooses to return to daily activities (instead of continuing the celebration) by committing pranks in their homes.

The most popular form of post-wedding romping, in Ms. Kononenko's view, is the tsyhanschyna that includes a costume party, with some guests in gypsy attire (and some cross-dressing) and a procession along the village street to the river bank. Several young men pull a decorated cart in which the bride's or groom's parents are transported to the river and dumped into a shallow spot in the stream. Some of the men go after the couple, especially the father, dousing him and pushing him into deeper water. In an attempt to get more people into the water, general pushing and shoving follows; at that point, many people disrobe to their underwear and go swimming.

Ms. Kononenko's interest in folklore began with the Ukrainian tales and other stories she heard in her childhood from her mother and grandfather. A graduate of Radcliffe College (B.A.) and Harvard University (M.A. and Ph.D.), she has won a number of distinctions and awards, including the 1997 Kovaliv Prize for best book in Ukrainian studies awarded for "Ukrainian Minstrels: And the Blind Shall Sing" (published by M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York and London, England, 1998).

Illuminating a tradition of oral poetry, "Ukrainian Minstrels" focuses on the blind kobzari and lirnyky of the Ukrainian countryside and includes new translations of the basic songs of their repertory. Ten years in the making, the book includes detailed chapters on the evolution of the minstrels' elaborate guild system and its connections with the Orthodox Church.

Ms. Kononenko is also the author of "Witchcraft," a book just published in Canada, and "The Turkish Minstrel Tale Traditions"; she is co-editor of "Ukrainian Dumy," editor of "The Magic Egg and Other Ukrainian Stories," to which she contributed a number of tales; and she has prepared an array of articles, book chapters and encyclopedia entries on folklore topics.

Bravos for Hrabova

Back in February, soprano Oleksandra (Lesia) Hrabova appeared as Violetta in the Dicapo Opera production of Verdi's "La Traviata," winning "star of the show" commendation from The New York Times. Now Opera News has jumped into the act with ecstatic compliments.

Music critic John W. Freeman called Ms. Hrabova's performance "a remarkably detailed, sensitively responsive, wholly convincing Violetta."

Mr. Freeman's review, which appeared in the June issue of Opera News, included these details: "The Ukrainian soprano looked, acted and sounded the part with gripping sincerity, wearing her costumes and jewels in Act I with the classy assurance of a Jarmila Novotna, singing her Act II duets with the vibrant intensity of a Licia Albanese. Hrabova's bright, steady, expressive voice handled a full range of dynamics without any lapse of composure, and her attentiveness to the other characters followed a legato line of motivation. In 'Sempre libera' her passagework sounded accurate yet spontaneous; in 'Addio del passato' one felt the purity of despair."

Concurrent with her growing fame in the world of opera, Ms. Hrabova remains very active in Ukrainian circles. During the Fourth of July weekend she appeared at the Grazhda cultural center in Hunter, N.Y. (July 3) and at the Ukrainian Youth Association (SUM) camp in Ellenville, N.Y. (July 4).

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