Starting at the Ukraine Palace and Continuing to France

The Veriovka National Meritorious Academic Ukrainian Folk Choir belongs to companies more often met abroad than in Ukraine. Founded in 1943, in Kharkiv soon after the city was taken from the Nazis, the choir now has a repertoire consisting of over 1,000 compositions. It has toured fifty countries and boasts eight million records sold. The choir will soon appear at a prestigious music festival in Nattigue, France. This fall, it will tour the United States on an invitation from Columbia Arts arranging tours for the world’s leading performing groups. Anatoly Avdiyevsky has been Veriovka’s artistic director for 34 years. He is People’s Artist of the USSR and Ukraine, laureate of the Shevchenko Prize, professor, and academician. His creative career is rich in memorable events, yet his talent was most fully revealed when working with the choir. He is the author of numerous choral arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs. Many of them will soon be heard at the National Palace Ukraine, during Avdiyevsky’s creative soiree. The choir will be also there, of course. The concert program will include scenes from Stankevych’s opera, Fern Flower, first performed by the choir twenty years ago, National Orchestra of Folk Instruments, Lionok Choir of Zhytomyr, Merited Artists of Ukraine Oleksandr Hurets and Olha Nahorna, and others, reports Olena BEREHOVA as a special to The Day.