Third-generation bandurist

“Nights in Banduristan” is a recording of 15 improvised instrumental works by Julian Kytasty. According to the musician, who has been popularizing bandura in the US, the Kyiv concert will feature excerpts from the music written for theater, for movie The Guide (directed by Oles Sanin), as well as new compositions and songs.

The famous composer and musician Julian Kytasty was born in Detroit, studied in Montreal at the Concordia University Conservatory. He is a bandurist in the third generation! In 1980 he moved to New York and started his concert, pedagogical, and later composing career. His performances at prestigious stages and festivals of America, Canada, and Europe have created a place for bandura in the World Music genre. The maestro wrote a lot of music for the stage, including that for the modern dance by choreographer Katia Koltsio and for the theater with Yara Arts Group and director Virlana Tkacz.

On the subject of the instrument he is playing, Kytasty spoke to Hromadske Radio: “This Kharkiv-style variant was created in 1946 at the camps for displaced persons in Germany for Bandurist Chorus, which needed to have their instruments restored. And then we brought such a bandura in 1989, when I first came to Ukraine for a concert with a renowned bandurist Victor Mishalow and singer Pavel Pisarenko. We had a bandura of this style and records of bandurists playing this kind of instrument. We showed it all to Vasyl Herasymenko in Lviv, and he made this one I am currently playing.”

For the past seven years the bandurist has often come to Ukraine, performing his music for Yara’s plays: Scythian Stones; Capt. John Smith Goes to Ukraine; Silent Night, Bright Stars; Ev = Home; 1917/2017: Tychyna, Zhadan and the Dogs. Those plays were performed on Gogolfest and other forums.