Nazarii Yaremchuk is a popular variety singer. Not only did he have a unique voice, but he was able to penetrate into the song’s soul. That is the reason why millions of admirers loved him. I had luck to talk to Nazarii, when we worked together at the Chernivtsi Oblast Television. And in 2000, the Volodymyr Ivasiuk Museum (Chernivtsi) jointly with Doba (Epoch) newspaper and with the assistance of the Renaissance Company organized an expedition called “Following the Roads of the Bukovyna Trio,” dedicated to the creative work of Ivan Mykolaichuk, Volodymyr Ivasiuk, and Nazarii Yaremchuk. The expedition members included journalists, museum employees, and singer Maria Mykolaichuk, a People’s Artist of Ukraine. When we came to Vyzhnytsia, the Palace of Culture gathered everyone who was involved in the vocal-instrumental ensemble Smerichka. The meeting was attended by the participants of the ensemble’s first lineup, singers and musicians. It will be reminded that Smerichka was founded late in 1966, and the band made its debut on New Year’s Night in 1967. Nobody knew Yaremchuk at the time. The members of Smerichka recalled that the head of the Rivnia Village Club told Halyna Levina (the then head of the Palace of Culture) about a guy with a wonderful voice. One day Nazarii came for an auditioning to Leontii Dutkivsky, Smerichka’s leader. The member’s of the band were sitting near Leontii. When Nazarii sang Ihor Poklad’s song “My Beloved,” everyone started applauding and Leontii invited Yaremchuk to a concert.
RUTA AND FOAM INSTEAD OF SNOW
Volodymyr Ivasiuk wrote one of his last songs, “I haven’t told you everything,” specially for Yaremchuk, so that the latter performed it at the competition Song-79. The composer scrupulously worked on the poem by Stepan Pushyk and searched the tiniest dissonances, to prevent any word in the song produce a negative allusion on the audience. So, he asked the lyrics’ author to use the word “mowed” instead of “picked” in the line “the wind picked some rain in the sky,” because people who did not know Ukrainian could misunderstand the real meaning of the word. Nazarii worked with the song in a similarly scrupulous way. Unfortunately, the composer’s tragic death prevented the song from being included in the competition program. At that time Ivasiuk’s songs were not recommended for performing or including in TV or radio programs. The song premiered only 10 years after that, at the first oblast festival Chervona Ruta. Importantly, even in those difficult years Yaremchuk never refused to perform his friend’s songs. He usually started his concerts with “Chervona Ruta.”
Incidentally, Yaremchuk was the jury member at the famous Nationwide Chervona Ruta Festival, which took place in 1989 in Chernivtsi and gave an impetus to the national-cultural revival in Ukraine. The festival was harshly criticized by the then Soviet power, because it featured many national-patriotic songs. Braty Hadiukiny, Sister Vika, Andrii Mykolaichuk, as well as Viktor Morozov and Andrii Panchyshyn who sang about Gorbachev’s trip to Lviv, when fir-trees were planted in the asphalt, and the authorities’ untalented attempts to find the reasons of the unknown Chernivtsi disease alopecia, became a real sensation. The authorities made television employees decode the songs’ lyrics and bring them to the oblast committee. It came to an idiotic demand to bring the text of the band Komu Vnyz, “Subbotiv,” which Andrii Sereda wrote to Taras Shevchenko’s verse. Consequently Nivalov, the first secretary of the party’s oblast committee, forbid to show the video recordings of the festival on TV. At that time Yaremchuk was a host of the UT music program “You Wrote to Us,” which was prepared by several oblast studios, in particular, in turns. Several months after the festival, the television was still receiving dozens of letters with a request to show at least fragments of Chervona Ruta. No arguments could persuade the administration. Yet on New Year’s Eve the creative group decided to take risk and show at least something on TV. We obtained consent and support of Nazarii Yaremchuk. At first we recorded the program on video film, which was watched by the assistant editor-in-chief of UT music programs Tamara Pavlenko, she liked it and revealed the ban from the festival recordings.
“MOM, DO YOU HEAR?”
Nazarii was a selfless father. Once he brought to the studio his sons, pupils of the seventh and sixth grades. He proposed to audition them. He waited with great excitement for the verdict of the specialists, especially Vasyl Strikhovych’s because he gave green light to many singers on TV. Yaremchuk was really glad, when the latter said, “Yes, the boys will sing.”
Once the singer came to the television studio with Oleksandr Zlotnyk’s song “Mom, do you hear?” He had just recorded it in Kyiv. We listened to it and liked it very much. We decided to make a video. We did not have time for decorations; by the way, there was no color television in Chernivtsi. The director offered the singer to sit on a stool and directed an intense light of a projector on him. For three minutes the video featured one man, you can’t get eyes off Yaremchuk. He was able to penetrate the deepest layers of any song and convey its character, intonation, and mood. He sang in such a manner that everyone who was watching and listening thought that Nazarii was addressing you, the dearest person, the mother. Of course, the black-and-white video was demagnetized and later a colored video was shot. And namely this song was one of the most popular songs among Ukraine’s audience.
“WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO OUR SONG GARDEN TOMORROW?”
In one of his last interviews Yaremchuk says: “We all should always be flying through our destiny over the vanity of life. However, at the same time we should not loose touch with the earth. We should remember sacred things: who gave birth to you, why do you live, where are you from, what do you want, what will you tell the people, from which well do you drink the elixir of life. I am past the age when you’re involved in vain things, such as autographs and popularity. I am concerned about another thing: what is going to happen with our song garden tomorrow? When I listen to young singers, who are called popular and famous, it surprises me: where does this come from? Why do they copy others and are not looking for something of their own? On what criteria are our hit parades based? Where are the hits? The programs featured the same surnames. I don’t mind, but is this the summit? Are imaginary, affected, invented, artificial things, created for self-satisfaction only the supreme limit of our contemporary art of singing?” Those are painful words. But Yaremchuk had the right to speak so. Because it was he – together with Volodymyr Ivasiuk, Sofia Rotaru, Vasyl Zinkevych, and Leonid Dutkivsky – who stood at the origin of establishment of the very notion of Ukrainian variety songs. The freshest stars of our show business can only envy the fantastic popularity of his songs.
