DATELINE NEW YORK: A wandering minstrel in modern garb (04/13/03)

DATELINE NEW YORK: A wandering minstrel in modern garb

by Helen Smindak

Kyivan Rus' had its "skomorohky," or itinerant minstrels (depicted in the frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv) who became professional entertainers performing songs and dances, mime shows and short dramatic pieces for the common people, as well as for nobles and court dignitaries. The Zaporozhian Sich had its "kobzari," wandering folk bards who performed a large repertoire of epic-historical, religious and folk songs while playing the kobza, a forerunner of the bandura, the national instrument of Ukraine.

The contemporary world offers us Julian Kytasty, a New York-based musician/singer whose life revolves around the propagation of bandura art and Ukrainian music, including ancient dumy, the chant-like epic songs that describe events in the Kozak period of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Appearing in a simple black suit with a collarless jacket and dark shirt, he has been playing his banduras (he owns eight different types) and his sopilka (wooden flute) for diverse audiences around the world for more than 25 years.

He has used four banduras at some performances in the past, and played five different banduras at a recent concert in Manhattan.

Invited to represent Ukrainian epic tradition at the citywide People's Poetry Gathering in New York, he was scheduled to perform at two different locations on April 11 and 12.

Mr. Kytasty is widely regarded as a stellar musician "showing a commanding level of technique but most of all the touch of a fairy" (Francois Couture of All-Music Guide). "Kytasty's voice, though not the voice of a great singer, has the quality fit for the song (of the kobzari): it sounds sincere, emotive, charged by the experience of life."

Audiences everywhere respond to the deep feeling in his throaty voice as he conveys the kobzar's palpable sorrows, bitterness or wanting, and at times humor and pathos.

Although Mr. Kytasty's work has centered around traditional dumy, his current cycle of activities includes appearances with the Experimental Bandura Trio in New York's vibrant alternative music scene, tours with Canadian singer/producer Alexis Kochan in her "Paris to Kyiv" project, and collaborations in theater with the Yara Arts Group, in modern dance with Katja Kolcio and with "many incredible musicians from different traditions."

Mr. Kytasty answers to a host of titles - bandurist, kobzar, skomorokh, sopilkar, singer, conductor, choral director, teacher and recording artist. Last month he added yet another designation to the list, that of prize-winning composer for a feature film. He won a Blizzard award for Best Film Score from the Manitoba Motion Picture Industry Association for his work (with Richard Moody) on "My Mother's Village," a feature-length National Film Board of Canada documentary directed by John Paskievich.

Such a treasury of talents might stir high and mighty airs in a performer, but this performing artist is modest and unassuming, with a keen sense of humor and a passionate zest for his musical endeavors. During a recent interview with "Dateline" in the East Village, he spoke in a quiet voice about his early activities and mentors. His dark eyes twinkled and he stroked his luxuriant mustache (he refers to it jokingly as his Saddam Hussein mustache) when he described the eclectic work he's been doing with the Experimental Bandura Trio and artists of other ethnic backgrounds.

He has appeared in the past two years with Derek Bailey, the founding father of the modern improvisation movement, master Mongolian musican Battuvshin, Chinese pipa virtuosos Wu Man and Liu Fang, Yiddish folksinger and pillar of the klezmer revival Michael Alpert, Hindustani slide guitar guru Debashish Bhattacharya, and many others.

An extremely satisfying facet of his life is his involvement with the Experimental Bandura Trio, which includes bandurists Mike Andrec and (until a month ago) Jurij Fedynskyj. The trio has been trying to become a presence on Manhattan's improvisational scene, partly to acquaint American audiences with Ukrainian music and the bandura, but also "to stretch our horizons a little bit."

As a result, the group has played in several downtown clubs during the past year. "We just sit down and play; we play Ukrainian music backwards, upside down, side to side. We don't really get to do songs - it's kind of a free for all - but people get to know the instrument," Mr. Kytasty points out.

Since Mr. Fedynskyj's departure for Ukraine (where he hopes to become a rock star), Mr. Kytasty and Mr. Andrec have worked up a duet act and are looking at new possibilities, including European touring with Mr. Fedynskyj, and getting out a new recording.

The whole gamut

"You can see I do the whole gamut - everything from 17th century dumy to squeaks and noises with Derek Bailey, " Mr. Kytasty explains. "For me, it's almost a continuum; I ventured into the deeper edge of tradition - the music of the kobzari - and there's a point at which it somehow joins the contemporary. You can go so deep into tradition that it becomes modern."

He also points with pride to the Bandura Downtown concert series that he co-curates with Mr. Andrec. The series' third full season (four concerts a year) ended a few weeks ago with a concert featuring Mr. Kytasty and singer Lilia Pavlovsky.

Mr. Kytasty's musical proficiency and his involvement with Ukrainian sacred music cleave to family tradition. His grandfather, Ivan Kytasty, who trained as a church choir conductor in the early 1920s, conducted St. Mary's Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral choir in Detroit until his death. His father, Peter Kytasty, took over the choir and is still conducting there. His great-uncle, Hryhory Kytasty, a renowned composer and bandurist, was the first director of the Detroit-based Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus. On his mother's side of the family, Petro Kondratenko was a major church choir conductor in Europe, Detroit and San Diego.

He learned to play the bandura when he was 12, in his father's Ukrainian Orthodox League youth ensemble in Detroit, using a Chernihivka bandura (Chernihiv factory-made bandura, with 55 strings, no mechanism, from the prized early '60s vintage). The instrument has been with him ever since. He guesses that it may be the most travelled and played bandura in history, having been everywhere from Kozak stanytsi in the Kuban to the National Flat Picking Guitar Festival in Winfield, Kan., to a Millennium of Ukrainian Christianity observance in the town of President Roque Saenz Pena in Argentina.

Nowadays, performing the repertoire of the kobzari of the 19th and early 20th centuries, he uses a 21-string starosvitska or kobzarska bandura made by the late Mykola Budnyk in Kyiv because he likes its beautiful tone. This bandura can be heard on most of the cuts of his latest solo recording, "Black Sea Winds."

For road gigs, especially if he must tune to concert pitch to play with other musicians (as in the "Paris to Kyiv" recordings with Ms. Kochan), he prefers a sturdier and less travel-sensitive kobzarska bandura made by Bill Vetzal of Oshawa, Ontario.

Bondarivna, a unique 20th century bandura originally made by Josyp Snizhnyj and extensively rebuilt by Antin Chornyj in Buenos Aires in 1965, was discovered in a closet at the Ukrainian National Home in a Buenos Aires suburb. Though abandoned and rotting for several years, it still held a recognizable tune. "The tone was unbelievable, (with) more subtlety than any bandura I had ever played," he recalled. "I purchased it then and there, with the promise that it would be played in performance as long as it held up, then placed in a museum."

A fourth instrument is his Kharkiv-style bandura, with 34 strings and individual mechanisms, made by Vasyl Herasymenko of Lviv; Mr. Kytasty favors this bandura when he needs to make many tuning changes during a single performance, as happens often with the Experimental Bandura Trio. He also used it during several tours of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, including the chorus Black Sea tour in 1994.

Other banduras in his collection, which he says haven't been getting much use lately, include a Kharkiv-style bandura made by his friend Ken Bloom (who made repairs to the Bondarivna instrument), and a bandura made by Mr. Vetzal that combines some of the structural features of Bondarivna and the Semen Lastovych instrument played by the renowned bandurist/composer Zynovii Shtokalko.

For flute work, he plays a traditional six-hole diatonic flute common all over the world (sopilka in Ukraine, tin whistle in Ireland, limbe in Mongolia). He learned to play on a tin whistle to entertain himself in down time during several tours of American and Canadian festivals with Mr. Bloom in 1983 to 1985.

Learning by doing

Looking back over the years, Mr. Kytasty said that, in the main, he learned by doing. As director of the New York School of Bandura in the early 1980s, he learned to arrange music and conduct and direct a youth choir. He gives credit to the late Nick Czorny, the school's director, for "his tremendous encouragement and support for many years - if he hadn't given me the chance to come to New York in 1980 for the School of Bandura, I may never have gotten very far on this path. He also sponsored my South American trips and made it possible for me to make a fresh start in New York after my Canadian years."

"A lot of what happened in my life wouldn't have taken place without the continuing support of the organization Mr. Czorny founded (we now call ourselves the New York Bandura Ensemble), which sponsors Bandura Downtown programs and my ongoing teaching activity, and works behind the scenes to keep bandura programs happening in New York," Mr. Kytasty emphasized.

The Bandura Ensemble activity culminated in work as the first director of New York's Homin Stepiv (Echo of the Steppes) ensemble from 1982 to 1985. He says he "learned a tremendous amount" during these years from Hryhory Kytasty in the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus and at the early bandura camps in Emlenton, Pa.

He believes his greatest influence in pedagogy was his cousin, Victor Kytasty, with whom he worked for several summers, holding workshops and helping set up bandura ensembles in Canada's prairie provinces. Teaching music for four years at St. Vladimir's College in Roblin, Manitoba, was also an invaluable experience, since he had to arrange music for a folk instrument orchestra, polka band, tsymbaly and a brass quintet, as well as choir and banduras. It also was a chance to involve himself deeply in the Ukrainian sacred music tradition.

Mr. Kytasty has been the music director of the annual bandura camp in Emlenton almost every year since 1990, with each session presenting a renewed challenge to create fresh repertoire and find ways of teaching more effectively during two super-intense weeks.

While studying for a music degree from Concordia University in Montreal (specializing in theory and composition), he worked hard on his great-uncle's music and put together his solo recording "Hryhory Kytasty: Music For Solo Bandura/Songs" (1997).

During the two-year teaching job that followed at St. Andrew's College, the Ukrainian Orthodox seminary in Winnipeg, he began collaborating with Ms. Kochan on an ongoing "Paris to Kyiv" project - a concert program with a Winnipeg-based ensemble that includes Richard Moody (viola) Martin Colledge (mandolin, cittern and Northumbrian pipes) and Nenad Zdjelar (bass).

The program and two recordings ("Paris to Kyiv: Variances" and "Prairie Nights and Peacock Feathers") are based on Ukrainian material, sometimes arranged by Mr. Kytasty, but more often in collective arrangements that filter it through the sensibilities of the varied group of players. The group is preparing for a tour of Eastern Europe and Ukraine in May.

Another aspect of his work with Ms. Kochan is "Nightsongs From a Neighboring Village," an exploration of Ukrainian and Jewish musical traditions. Presented in New York, Toronto, Hollywood and Berlin in various forms and with different line-ups of performers, this program has been built mostly on the collaboration of Mr. Kytasty, Ms. Kochan and Mr. Alpert of the klezmer supergroup Brave Old World.

The wandering minstrel can be heard on several CDs. To obtain "Hryhory Kytasty: Music for Solo Bandura/Songs," "Black Sea Winds: Music of the Kobzari of Ukraine," "Variances" or "Prairie Nights and Peacock Feathers," contact jkytasty@erols.com. "Experimental Bandura Trio" is available through Mr. Andrec at comrevgrd@earthlink.net.

Helen Smindak's e-mail address is HaliaSmindak@aol.com.

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