The Ukrainian Artwork Music Challenge takes place on the Royal Conservatory of Music, starting on August 11, and ending with a live performance on August 17. Since its inaugural 12 months in 2017, the Ukrainian Artwork Music Summer time Institute has supported 43 artists in providing an immersive dive into the style.
For 2025, UASP’s seventh iteration, the lineup contains eight vocalists from Austria, Canada, the US and Ukraine — Sofia Bolonna, Mezzo-soprano; Juliana Hentosz, soprano; Olivia Pryce-Digby, soprano; Catharin Carew, Mezzo-Soprano; Polina Kornyushenko, soprano; Samantha Fullerton, soprano; Lana Pastuszak, soprano; Anna Tanczak, soprano — and pianist Violetta Kurkurina, who’ll spend every week in an intensive examine of the style.
Together with the performers, Myroslav Volynsky from Lviv, Ukraine, joins the 2025 Ukrainian Artwork Music Summer time Institute school as resident composer.
Myroslav Volynsky
Composer Myroslav Volynsky was born within the village of Pidtesovo, Krasnoyarsk Territory, and lived in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine for a lot of his childhood. There, he studied at and graduated from the Music and Pedagogy School of the Ivano-Frankivsk Pedagogical Institute (now the College).
He went on to review in Lviv on the Mykola Lysenko Lviv State Conservatory, the place he graduate with a level in composition. Along with his compositions, Myroslav taught composition on the Lviv Secondary Particular Music Boarding College, and plenty of of his college students have gone on to competitors wins and worldwide recognition.
Volynsky has composed many bigger scale works, together with seven operas, three oratorios, cantatas, symphonic works, choral, vocal, chamber music, and instrumental music of varied genres.
Myroslav Volynsky’s artwork songs have been studied and carried out by many members of the Ukrainian Artwork Music Summer time Institutes.
LvT requested Volynsky just a few questions on Ukrainian artwork music.
From the Ukrainian Artwork Music Summer time Institute 2024:
Myroslav Volynsky: Q&A
LvT: How necessary is artwork music to Ukrainian tradition?
MV: There’s a direct connection between Ukrainian people songs and artwork songs. In any case, every people music additionally had its personal creator. Some people songs have such a posh and excellent melody and fantastic poetic textual content that solely a really proficient particular person might create them.
Sadly, the authorship of such songs was not recorded, and later they have been utterly forgotten. The music was handed down from mouth to mouth. Nevertheless, now it has been potential to ascertain the authorship of some songs that till just lately have been thought of people. Examples are “A Cossack Travelled Throughout the Danube” (phrases and music by Semen Klymovsky), “I Have a look at the Sky” (phrases by Mykhailo Petrenko, music by Lyudmila Oleksandrova) and plenty of others.
Some artwork songs are sung not solely in live performance halls, but in addition in on a regular basis life and are thought of people. For instance, “Oh, You, Lady from a Nut of a Grain” (music by Anatoly Kos-Anatolsky, phrases by Ivan Franko), “Oh, within the Meadow, a Pink Viburnum” (phrases and music by Stepan Charnetsky). As we speak, the Ukrainian artwork music has grow to be an integral a part of chamber music.
LvT: Are there any particular options or components in your music that you’d name uniquely Ukrainian?
MV: When creating music, I pay major consideration to the content material and thought of the work. Relying on them, I exploit sure components of musical expressiveness. In some works which have a people theme, there are components that emphasize the Ukrainian character of the music: particular modal, rhythmic, or intonation gadgets. For instance, “A Thought of a Poor Widow and Three Sons” (phrases by Oleksandr Oles).
Along with purely Ukrainian modes and intonations (the Dumy mode and the Hutsul mode), my works additionally include Jewish klezmer, oriental melodies, and components of jazz. And after I thought of it needed, I even used dodecaphony.
LvT: You’ve got created quite a lot of works. What attracts you specifically about artwork music?
MV: I’ve created works in all kinds of genres of educational music. Nevertheless, my favorite style was and stays opera. And the artwork music, in my understanding, may be very near opera. It’s like an opera in miniature, a mono-opera, usually like a psychological drama, wherein in a brief time period the hero experiences a concentrated cluster of emotions: religion and disbelief, hopes and doubts.
LvT: How tough is it to proceed to do your job throughout the struggle?
MV: I feel it’s much more necessary to proceed. Everybody ought to proceed to do their job, to not retreat from their calling. Though within the first months of the struggle I couldn’t write, not to mention method the piano. It appeared unacceptable to set myself any musical duties whereas individuals have been dying.
However throughout this horrible interval, many musicians discovered themselves overseas. They wanted works by Ukrainian composers to characterize their nation. And infrequently these have been teams of very completely different instrumental ensembles for which there was no repertoire. So little by little, my return to creativity befell, and the conclusion that tradition, artwork is necessary, they’re representatives of Ukraine on this planet.
Ukrainian Artwork Music Summer time Institute: Live performance August 17
Different school members this 12 months embody co-director Dr. Melanie Turgeon, co-director and vocal coach Benjamin Butterfield, vocal coach Andrea Ludwig, and collaborative pianists Stephen Philcox and Dr. Leanne Regehr.
Together with the work of Volynsky, the live performance program will function songs by Mykola Lysenko, Petro Haidamaka, Ostap Nyzhankivsky, Yakiv Stepovy, Kyrylo Stetsenko, and Stefania Turkewich.
- Discover live performance particulars and tickets [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 a long time, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
