Pikkardiiska Tertsia celebrates anniversary on stage

The vocal formation Pikkardiiska Tertsia goes on the record-breaking tour across the cities of eastern and southern Ukraine. This year the band celebrates its 25th anniversary. The tour will begin on October 16 in Poltava, and then the concerts are going to be held in Sumy, Kremenchuk, Kropyvnytsky, Oleksandria, Kryvyi Rih, Nikopol, Kamianske, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Melitopol, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Berdiansk, Sievierodonetsk, and Kramatorsk; the tour will end on November 1 in Mariupol. This is going to be the fourth musical voyage of Pikkardiiska Tertsia to the cities of Ukraine’s east and south for the past two years.

“We have a completely new program entitled ‘Fly...’ and we are going to present it at the concerts,” said Volodymyr Yakymets, artistic director of Pikkardiiska Tertsia. “By the way, this program will soon become the basis for our new album, which we are going to release for the 25th anniversary of the band.”

A point of reference in the bright and creative existence of Pikkardiiska Tertsia is September 24, 1992 – the day when the newly formed sextet debuted with a concert at Ivan Franko Lviv National University.

Positive attitude and optimism are already inherent in the band’s name. Picardy Third [Pikkardiiska Tertsia in Ukrainian] is a term invented by the famous Ukrainian composer Anatolii Kos-Anatolsky. It refers to the major turn in the final part of a musical piece. However, the vocal group added their own flavor in this term by doubling the letter “K.”

The sextet’s creative legacy amounts to more than 300 songs in various musical styles: pop, rock, classical, folk, jazz, country, spiritual music, rock and roll, blues... Almost 95 percent of Pikkardiiska Tertsia’s songs are in Ukrainian, although the band has songs in 12 languages in total. No less impressive is the geography of their tours: Poland, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Canada, the US, Belgium, Switzerland, Singapore...