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The national instrument of this Eastern European country is yours to see and enjoy on Saturday, March 14, at 6 p.m. at Stamford’s St. Basil’s College Auditorium. It is the only area performance of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus.
Formed in Ukraine in 1918 and based in Detroit since the group came to America from Europe in 1949, the all-male chorus features 49 members from across the U.S. and Canada. Members range in age from 16 to 70 and include a variety of father and son pairs.
Of those 49 members, 15 play the bandura. Said to be a cross between a harp and a lute and akin in sound to a harpsichord, the modern bandura has between 20 and 65 strings and is played from a seated position. The sound is lyrical, exotic, and harmonious, adapting easily from folk to pop to classical to jazz. The bandura is at its best, however, when it accompanies Ukrainian song.
“We’re storytellers,” said Anatoli W. Murha, president of the organization and a second-generation member himself. He has been with the chorus since he was 14 years old.
“We do this for Ukraine, to share the culture and share the bandura. And we do this to keep the mission of the kobzari [traditional Ukrainian bards and traveling minstrels] alive in the diaspora.”
“When people see the bandura for the first time, the number one reaction is ‘Wow, we have never seen anything like that,’” he added. “My most memorable experience was a concert we gave in Paris at the Notre Dame Cathedral in 2003. There were hundreds, if not thousands of tourists, there that day and within a couple of chords on the bandura, they all stopped what they were doing, swarmed in from all sides to the altar where we were performing, and listened.”
The title of the tour is “Brothers, We Shall Live,” which comes from a line in one of the pieces being performed and is the name of the band's latest release.
Another second-generation bandurist, Andrij Birko, explained the tour's name: “It means that even in the face of adversity, not only will we [both bandura and Ukraine] exist, but we will Live, with a capital L.”
Tickets for the performance are available at www.ubcstamford.eventbrite.com/ and at the door.
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