There Chords From Disgrace to Glory

The man is known today as a prospering Western musician and polyglot of musical instruments who has resided in Denmark for the past ten years.

More often than not, all that a Ukrainian musician (even a very gifted one) can achieve in the West is appear in occasional concerts or join a group playing in a restaurant. The best possible opportunity is being a studio musician. In this sense, Andriy Butorin is a happy exception of the rule. He was the first Ukrainian performer to set up a private studio, BLN Records, where he cut his debut album The Woman. It was actually the first CD made by a Ukrainian musician for Western audiences. It was based on instrumental pieces, and Andriy presented a copy to the Queen of Denmark.

Of course, he had to start like any newly arrived immigrant musician: hunting for contracts, getting the material ready, studying the market (musical tastes) and advertising. He worked as a street musician to pay the rent and buy food.

Fortunately, musical talent, especially coming from Eastern Europe, is highly esteemed in the West, but few if any bother to actually promote it. A local impresario will first make sure that you are there to stay, that you will not suddenly make up your mind to just move on. On the other hand, starting a professional career requires concerted action from both managers and performers. Ukrainian musicians often start by counting their take-home pay, forgetting how much has been invested in terms of hard cash and nerves in building their names and pushing them through.

Once after a concert in Hamburg, an old man bought a CD from Andriy.

"We talked afterward  and, on learning that I was from Poltava, the old man said he had fought there during World War II," Butorin recalls. "It's a small world really, and strange things happen: to think that he came to my country with tanks and I did to his with a set of drums."

Andriy is in Denmark now, working on a third CD, having been inspired, as he puts it, by a meeting with the famous drummer Dave Wackle (co-starring in albums recorded by Chick Korea, Madonna, Robert Plant, and Diana Ross). His first CD has a run of 6,000 in Denmark. Quite a lot for this small country, meaning that the man has every reason to view his future optimistically.