“Our choir had the honor of opening the 140th jubilee season of the National Philharmonic Society of Ukraine,” says Yevhen Savchuk, Artistic Director of the Dumka Choir. “Dumka performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mykola Diadiura and soloists Norbert Ort (tenor, Germany), Franco Degrandis (bas, Italy), and Valerie Condolucci (soprano, France). We also presented Myroslav Skoryk’s Cantata Poem Hamaliya at the Kyiv Music Fest recently (it’s based on Taras Shevchenko’s well-known title poem), and I think it has a big future. Dumka will record a CD with Hamaliya, so it can have the broadest possible audience, although this project will require solving certain technical and organizational problems; in addition to the choir, we’ll need a symphony orchestra and two soloists, also money for the recording, something easier said than done these days.
“We have another big project. Dumka will record the National Anthem in a different key, as Myroslav Skoryk has written a new version. The previous recording was a joint Skoryk-Stankevych production. It’s what you hear every day on the radio and on all solemn occasions. Now we’re looking for a new music version. You see, we are not quite satisfied with the existing one. I think that the key is too high and it’s difficult even for professional singers. The National Anthem must be arranged so it can be sung by anyone, it must be good for any voice. The current version has a complicated score, so it has to be readjusted. I’m sure that before long Ukrainians will sing it where and whenever they feel like it, and that they will hang the National Flag over the entrances of their homes, the way it’s done in the United States.”
HOW UKRAINIANS TRIED TO UNDERSTAND THE FRENCH SOUL
“This summer we performed in Meg
О ve, a skiing resort in the French Alps and also venue for annual summer music festivals. It was our second appearance and this time our partners were musicians from the Philharmonic Society of Novosibirsk [Russia]. The conductor, Aleksandr Polishchuk, was also from Ukraine, former resident of Kyiv and my student, now working in St. Petersburg. You see, the music world is small. We hadn’t met at home, but had met during performances outside Ukraine for two years.
“My colleagues joke that Dumka has made Ukraine its second home. Indeed, the choir has toured it for more than a decade. We have our habitu О s there and we have toured practically all of France, except the islands, former French colonies. This year we traditionally appeared at the International Music Festival held for the 37th time in La Chaise-Dieu in the south of France. The festival is under the patronage of President Jacques Chirac, and ex-President and Mayor of Paris Val О rie Giscard Destaing is an honorary member. In fact, their patronage is not only on paper; both often attend the concerts.
“We performed foreign and Ukrainian music. The program was diversified. We appeared in nine concerts. After Berlioz’s Requiem, the festival director told me that Val О rie Giscard Destaing would like to meet with the choir. It was so unexpected I didn’t know what to say at first. After all, choirs aren’t often visited by politicians of such caliber. Mr. Destaing turned out a markedly erudite personality, versed in music, and at the same time charmingly sociable. Concerts of classic music for him are not a matter of protocol, but a way to satisfy his cultural needs. He asked me to tell him about the choir, singers, their music education, how we shape our repertoire, and so on. He also said something we found most flattering, ‘Your excellent rendition of Berlioz’s Requiem shows that you have fathomed the French soul.’ What I shame I didn’t have my camera with me. To think that I’d have pictures of that meeting! By the way, Dumka also performed in La C ц ote-Saint-Andr О , the native town of Berlioz, that outstanding French composer, conductor, critic, and writer. This year marks the 200th anniversary of his birth. We contributed by preparing a program of his works with the Ukrainian National Philharmonic. French audiences are very demanding, take my word for it, and it made the excellent press following even more gratifying.”
UNAWARE OF OUR WEALTH
“I think that those organizing festivals in Ukraine ought to learn from their French counterparts. Beautiful posters, brochures with detailed information about the performing groups and soloists, composers, works to be performed, complete with excellent photos. And of course, everything’s timed precisely and done on schedule, meaning very efficient auxiliary personnel, so one doesn’t have to wreck one’s nerve cells bothering about trifles and can concentrate on rehearsing, so as to reveal one’s potential in full during the concert. There was only one thing we regretted. The schedule was so tight Dumka had no time to visit the Berlioz Museum. I promised them we’d do it next time. We performed a lot. We arrived in the morning, rested for a couple of hours, and then started rehearsing. In the evening we appeared at the concert. We had a very big repertoire, including Beethoven’s Ninth (with Diadiura’s symphony orchestra), a program titled Vocal Music of Old Rus’, works by Rachmaninoff, Verdi, Durufle, Bortniansky, Yatsinevych, Kozak, Stankovych, Dychko, Zubytsky, and others. Thus, we performed Faure’s Requiem with the Lithuanian Orchestra. Its conductor Gintars Renkyavichus is my friend of many years. It’s an excellent orchestra. We’ve performed together Verdi’s Requiem and Haydn’s Seasons. Practically all our a cappella renditions included Ukrainian music. And mind you, we sang in front of a foreign, not ethnic Ukrainian audience. This made their warm response even more gratifying. I might as well point out that the Ukrainian French community is small, mostly in the suburbs of Paris, Lyons, and Strasbourg. I wasn’t quite prepared for such response. The French have a keen perception of music, although their music doesn’t have as much emotionality or sentimentality. They are more temperamental but make a very sensitive, meditative audience. We are used to treating our music as being heartfelt, penetrating, and we seem oblivious of possessing a great wealth of music. Many in the audience would approach us after the concert to express their appreciation; they did not conceal their emotions and told us that they had just discovered a new music stratum.
“After the festival in La Chaise- Dieu we went to Paris and gave two concerts at the Cathedral of St. Louis, including Rachmaninoff’s Liturgy and Ukrainian music (in the first part of the concert we sang religious works by unknown composers, Pechersk Lavra chants, and Bortniansky’s compositions; in the second part we performed secular works by Yatsinevych, Kozak, Stankovych, Dychko, Zubytsky). The audience responded with standing applause lasting for about ten minutes. The organizing committee invited us to perform in the French capital next year.
“The next point on our tour was Poland. We took part in the Wroclaw Song Fest. It is a prestigious event, and one’s program must be made accordingly, as there are world- known names among the contenders. It was our third appearance there. We gave six a cappella concerts (five programs of Ukrainian and one program of Russian classic music: Rachmaninoff’s Liturgy). Every time the audience was packed. Encores, heaps of flowers. And it was a highly qualified audience. Dumka is well known in Poland. We also performed in Warsaw and Zeliona Gуra with the Polish Philharmonic conducted by the celebrated Czeslaw Grabowski.
“In a word, we are in demand on the European music market, but organizing tours in Ukraine means having to solve a lot of problems. Here one is acutely aware of the absence of a balanced national cultural policy aimed at propagating the true art. Instead, countless gab sessions last for years on end. We still don’t have laws on culture, the arts, philanthropy, and financial aspects of concert tours.”
