Kuban Cossack Choir scores spectacular success in Kyiv

This year marks the noted choir’s 198th season. The Kuban Cossack Choir has toured Ukraine a number of times, and each concert was a dazzling discovery for the audiences. It boasts an extensive and variegated repertoire. What remains unchanged is the choir’s magnetic talent and a profound patriotic spirit that permeates every song and dance.

Kuban has long been popular in Ukraine; after all, the Kuban area has been closely linked with Ukrainian traditional culture throughout history. Nor was it coincidental that the Kuban Cossack Choir was Russia’s only performing group to win the Taras Shevchenko State Prize. Quite a few soloists and its artistic director, Viktor Zakharchenko, have the well-deserved title “People’s Artist of Ukraine.”

Kuban Choir’s performances are something people need today; they aptly combine national authenticity and modern rendition, and their creativity is a graphic example of how it is possible and necessary to create, preserve, and popularize something purely and singularly national.

The Kuban Cossacks’ concerts are like family reunions and their songs are like a gulp of crystal clear spring water. The conductor Viktor Zakharchenko is truly a hero of Ukraine. It would be hard to overestimate what this man, a true Ukrainian by birth and spirit, has managed to do for the benefit of his homeland, while being far away from it.

During his concert we are thrilled to rediscover our Ukraine, listening to the emotional songs based on poems by Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, Ivan Franko, Olena Pchilka, and skillfully arranged by Zakharchenko. (He has been the Kuban Cossack Choir’s conductor and artistic director for the past 35 years.) He instructs his performers: “You must sing every song as though you wrote it yourself.”

Zakharchenko is the recipient of numerous awards, but he remains a modest and tolerant man to deal with. I visited a rehearsal of the choir and was amazed by the calm and balanced manner in which he handles the performers. Even when making a critical remark to the choir, he speaks in a quiet tone of voice, with everyone listening carefully. He speaks in the language of his people and they understand and love him dearly. Despite the choir’s tight schedule, The Day learned from the artistic director about the new program being prepared for the Kuban’s anniversary, the role of folk creativity, and Zakharchenko’s views on the current relations between Ukraine and Russia.

Says Zakharchenko: “Quite honestly, I’ve never set myself the task of staging a concert to amaze the audience. Rather, I’ve felt like sharing what I have managed to create, new songs, and new young singers and dancers. For me every concert is an elevated spirit on the one hand and hard work on the other. I treat every concert with the utmost responsibility, with the understanding that those who come to our concerts in Ukraine are not just the audience but people who are very dear to us. I have many friends and relatives in this country.

“When a concert begins, I expect to receive slips of paper from the audience, asking to perform this or that song, so every time we’re faced with the hard task of selecting songs for the program. We can’t perform the same songs every time, but we realize that that someone in the audience will expect to hear his or her favorite song or watch a favorite number. We have a vast and diversified repertoire, and although each concert lasts three hours, we simply can’t perform everything we have on our repertoire.

“This time I wanted to perform songs for the Ukrainian audiences that based on Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, and Olena Pchilka’s poems. For example, the song Viter buiny will for the first time be performed by our soloist Viktoria Melnychuk. She is only 20 years old. When she first came for audition, I thought she was an athlete, maybe a basketball player, and I fleetingly imagined this tall girl grabbing a small Cossack by the forelock. And then she started singing and I was mesmerized, her voice was so strong and clear. The scene I imagined now looked so silly. She sings Oi, stoha, stoha, Viter buiny, and other soulful songs.

“Our program includes Zaporozhian and Kuban Cossack songs and scenes from the show Velyka kozacha istoria (Great Cossack History), which we have prepared for the choir’s anniversary [in 2011 Kuban will celebrate its 200th jubilee — O.R.]. Viktor Sorokin will sing the folk song Kogda my byli na voine (When We Were Fighting the War) to his own concertina accompaniment. Now this is a catchy song and often gets an encore. There are dances staged by our choreographer Valerii Anuchin, based on the song Oi, maiu ia ocheniata. He sees every song in motion.”

Is there a difference between the Ukrainian and, for example, South African audience, considering that you toured that country not so long ago?

“It was our third South African tour and we were offered yet another tour. We gave 24 concerts, and it was a remarkable phenomenon, I mean not only the Kuban Choir. We have toured all continents, from Cape Good Hope to South Africa. Despite the difference in mentality, social and financial status, religion, and language, our songs have never failed to reach our audiences. Many say it’s their energy. I think it is the spirit of our forefathers handed down to our singers that charges our audiences.

“In Ukraine, we’re always accorded a special kind of welcome, very cordially, open-heartedly. Whenever we tour Ukraine, we feel doubly responsible for every concert. This time I met with my Ukrainian colleague Anatolii Avdievsky, the artistic director of the Veriovka Choir. We had an interesting philosophic conversation. I share his idea that folk art must be supported in every way because this art took shape over years and ages, owing to people’s love for their land. It is true that Ukraine has the world’s richest folk creative heritage, but Ukrainians often somehow disown their historical roots, culture, and language. (In Holland, for example, the Byzantine Choir sings only in Ukrainian — and this considering that there isn’t a single ethnic Ukrainian member of the choir.). Avdievsky and I also spoke about the soul as a lasting value.”

Before touring a certain country, do you include its national songs in your repertoire?

“Our choir is basically Ukrainian and there are many Ukrainian songs on our repertoire, but we always add a few surprise numbers, several ethnic songs of the host country. Thus, we have performed Chinese, Japanese, Slovak, Belarusian, Serbian, German, and many other songs. The Kuban Choir sings the kind of songs its audience would like to hear in their own language or dialect.

“Ukraine, however, is not one of those countries where you have to sing a thank-you song. Ours are Ukrainian roots. I am Ukrainian. My family tree stems from the Poltava and Chernihiv regions. My great grandparents left for the Kuban area in search of a better life. They had became orphans at an early age and had to work hard to earn a living since childhood. At home we always spoke Ukrainian. We lived in the stanitsa [village in the Kuban] of Diatkovskaya. It was there I heard so many beautiful folk songs for the first time.”

As the choir’s artistic director, you collect folk songs and compose songs, popularizing Russian and Ukrainian culture.

“Every year I go on trips to collect old Cossack songs brought there by the descendants of Black Sea (Ukrainian) Cossacks from the Zaporozhian Sich and also Russian songs from the Don Cossacks. I have several thousand on record. I make choral arrangements, trying to preserve every song’s original flavor. Folk songs must be performed on stage. If left on paper, they will never have the desired effect.

“Why do I compose songs? Because it is necessary to add to our cultural heritage, not just collect what we have. There are many songs to Shevchenko’s lyrics, like ‘Why did you darken, oh green field?’ Why shouldn’t I write my own songs that will eventually become part of history?”

Public interest in folk songs has shown an increase of late. How do you feel about modern arrangements of folk songs?

“There are talented arrangements and I enjoy them. I think that folk songs should be arranged like that. With time this process will expand. However, one must have a sense of proportion and taste, so as not to destroy the original folk song in an effort to keep pace with modern trends. Words and melody are the main thing about a folk song, so the quality of arrangement depends on a given composer’s creative taste. Otherwise the result will be as in that saying, ‘We wanted to do it the best way, but the result was, as usual, poor.’”

How do you find people for your choir? Or maybe they find you? Whole role is played in this by a special school named after you?

“Our choir is gradually rejuvenating. We keep our doors open for talented people. Sometimes talent finds its way to us. Sometimes this happens during concert tours, leaving you wondering at the talents hidden in a young soul.

“The Kuban Choir set up its ‘talent nursery’ in 1986 when a grade school specializing in arts was founded under its aegis. Several years ago it was named after me. Every year we provide training to more than 600 gifted boys and girls, instilling in them love for folk songs, dances, and various crafts. Most of our soloists are graduates of this school, along with 70 percent of our dancers. Quite a few of them are winners of various contests; many are conservatory graduates. We’re very proud of them. The school’s curriculum includes classes in Orthodoxy. You see, this choir was founded as a church one.”

Where are you headed after Kyiv?

“We have a tight schedule. Often it’s off the plane and into the concert hall, and then back to the airport. We recently did some arithmetic and discovered that we’d given 60 concerts during a month. In Moscow we’ll perform at a gala concert commemorating the anniversary of birth of the splendid composer Aleksandra Pakhmutova. Then we’ll have a rehearsal with the Grand Symphony Orchestra of Russia conducted by Vladimir Fedoseyev. It’s been my cherished dream to sing with a symphony orchestra. Then we’ll continue our tour of Ukraine. There will be concerts in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhytomyr, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Donetsk, Rivne, Mykolaiv, Chernivtsi, etc. — all in all, more than 16 cities. We want to bring people joy and share our souls with them. If the audience greets the finale with a standing ovation, it means that these people have shared our inspiration and our spirit of the folk songs.