Ensemble Hilka--Ukrainian Music (Special Event)

From New York

Commemorating the 25th Anniversary of Chornobyl/Chernobyl

In the 1970s, ethnomusicologist and song collector Yevhen Yefremov conducted numerous field expeditions into the Chornobyl region. The foremost Ukrainian expert in polyphonic singing styles of Central and Northern Ukraine, Dr. Yefremov will lead New York-based Ensemble Hilka in reinterpreting traditional songs from the Chornobyl region; the ensemble features some of New York?s leading East European folksingers. A pedagogue and a writer, Dr. Yefremov is also the founder of the important Ukrainian revival choir Drevo.

2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the nuclear disaster in Chornobyl that irrevocably transformed the ecological and social dimensions of life in the Ukrainian and Belarusian regions now known as the ?Chornobyl Zone.? Since 1986, the traditional communities of the Chornobyl zone have been largely dispersed and destroyed, and today, very few people remain in the region. Yet, a trace of the human spirit that used to populate this region remains, in the form of archival field recordings documenting the ritual and quotidian aspects of daily life before the disaster. This program honors that spirit, those lives.

Curated by Dr. Yefremov and Ukrainian-American ethnomusicologist and singer Maria Sonevytsky, Ensemble Hilka?s performance will be accompanied by projected archival footage and photographs coordinated by director Virlana Tkacz and Yara Arts Group.