^B00:00:13 >> Stephen Winick: Welcome to the American Folklife Center's 2022 Homegrown at Home Concert Series. I'm Stephen Winick. For many years, we've presented the Homegrown Concert Series featuring the best in folk music and dance from around the world, in various rooms and spaces around the Library of Congress here in Washington D.C., but in the Year 2020, because of the global pandemic, we shifted to producing an online video concert series which we call Homegrown at Home. So, now in 2022, this is our third year of Homegrown at Home concerts. We're still being cautious about bringing audiences together. Now, we have long known about Julian Kytasty's work as a musician and scholar of Ukrainian traditions, and we're very glad to have him in the series this year. I'll just say that he's a third generation player of the bandura, and he's known not only for renditions of Ukrainian folk and traditional music and epic songs, but also his own compositions, theater music, and world music collaborations of all kinds. Now, to get to more background and context for our concerts, we like to interview the performers whenever we can. And so, I am here today with Julian Kytasty. So, welcome Julian. We're very glad to have you. >> Julian Kytasty: Hello, Stephen. >> Stephen Winick: Now, I guess sort of the elephant in the room nowadays when we're presenting Ukrainian traditions is the war that's going on right now in Ukraine. And so, just wondering if you -- if you could say a few words about that from the cultural perspective? >> Julian Kytasty: Well, no kidding, it's the elephant in the room. It's, you know, it really has affected so many people in so many ways, and continues to do so and will continue to do so. But the way that -- that I've finally -- the way that I decided for myself, you know, how to deal with it, for this specific concert, and I think probably in more of my work going forward, is I -- I heard somebody right near the beginning of the war, talk about how this is -- these are like the first days of this big war, which is really a war that's been going on for eight years, which it has since 2014 in Crimea and Donbas. And -- and that eight year war is just the latest -- the latest iteration of a 400-year old conflict, which started when -- when Moscow's imperialist project started trying to move into Ukraine in a big way, in the 1600s. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: You know, and what -- looking at it from that kind of historical perspective, which is -- which is something I do anyway, because I'm -- I am deeply interested in history, not just in Ukraine, but just in history as a discipline. But looking at it in that -- from that historical perspective, it really helped -- it helped me relate to my repertoire, relate to the things that I have been doing, that I will be doing, in that context. And all of a sudden, a lot of things started to make sense. A lot of the songs that I've been do -- that I'm going to do in this program are songs from the 1600s, early 1700s. And I've been doing them for years. And I realize that whether they're specifically historical songs or not, there are -- they come out of the context of that historical struggle one way or another. And what they let us do is hear the voice of the people of that time. And of intervening times. The people who made those songs, the people who passed them on, from generation to generation. The people who collected them and wrote them down. They were all influenced at various times by what was going on in this -- in this fundamental conflict of values and civilizations. And so, it's a way to -- you know, doing these songs today is a -- it's a way to, you know, hear the ancestors speak. You know, to have at least -- and of course then relating to the song, you're speaking back to them, too. >> Stephen Winick: Sure. And I mean, another fascinating thing about -- about your being the presenter of this concert and the performer, is that your own family is part of this -- this 400-year history in a sense. And the family history of -- of how you came to this country has to do with this conflict. Could you tell the story a little bit about your family's arrival here? >> Julian Kytasty: Well, there -- like you mentioned Steve, I'm a third generation player. My father and grandfather came to the United States as professional players. And my grandfather and his brother were part of a -- of a small group of professional players who -- who ended up coming together and starting to perform in outlaying villages around Kiev in the first winter of the German occupation after the -- after the Nazi invasion in 1941. They were playing the villages for food, you know? And did that for a while, and then -- and then at some point -- and then in the summer of 1942, the whole group was basically put on a -- put in a cattle car and sent to Germany to -- initially to work in -- as essentially slave labor in the -- in the factories, which of course happened to millions of Ukrainians at that time. Especially young people. And you know, the group had made my father official student, which meant that he didn't get rounded up on his own, you know, in the -- but [inaudible] it very possibly saved his life, you know? But what it also meant was that when the group got put on the cattle car, he went with them. >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: So, you know, so that was my father's experience, you know, living through World War II in those circumstances, and as a 14-year old kid. But you know, but they -- they were lucky, you know? They ended up being able to make their way to Bavaria at the end of the war, and into the U.S. occupation zone and then four years of, you know, refugee camps. Displaced persons camps, after the war, which they used to practice, you know? And the whole group came as a group to the United States. >> Stephen Winick: Yes, how did they manage that? That sounds like it would be very complicated to figure out. >> Julian Kytasty: It was, but -- and it was 1949 when they were looking for a chance to go someplace out of Germany. By 1949, when the people from those camps were being admitted to the United States, Canada, Australia, other countries, and they managed to -- they managed to work it out where they all -- they all went more or less at the same time, and they all went to the Detroit area. You know? >> Stephen Winick: And so, they had been sort of in -- in exile from Ukraine already for almost a decade by the time--? >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, yes. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, eight years. Yes. >> Stephen Winick: Yes, yes. That's amazing. So -- so arriving here, they were sort of lucky to have a built in group to play with, but how did they find the Detroit area in terms of the Ukrainian population there. What was--? >> Julian Kytasty: No, there's a -- there's a large Ukrainian population, and -- all ready, you know, going back to the earlier immigrations from the turn of the century, and from between wars. But also, a large immigration came to Detroit from the displaced persons camps, because -- because there were jobs. You know, there were all these factory jobs. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And early on, that's -- that's what they did. You know, they all would get a -- would get a factory job, and then when there was a chance to go on tour with the group, they'd all quit and then come back -- come back in a month or two or get a different factory job. It was a little bit easier to do that back in those days. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: So, they, you know, [inaudible] did that eventually, after a while they realized they couldn't -- they really couldn't keep a group that size. It was about 20 people, going -- going as a -- solely as a professional music ensemble. But so, at that point, they -- now the tours became less frequent and they'd -- but they still did it. They actually went back to Europe in 1958. They toured all over North America and they kept the group going long enough for my generation to learn the instrument and start -- start taking the place of some of the other players. So, those are my first touring experiences was [inaudible]. >> Stephen Winick: Sure -- yes, so -- so explain how you started to play and be part of this tradition. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, well I -- I learned -- I learned it directly from my father, who also is teaching kids in Detroit. He started a youth ensemble. And there were other groups like that started at that time. So, it's actually by the time -- by the time I was in my -- by the time I hit my 20's, there was actually some demand for instructors and players in different parts of North America. And I started doing that. Started [inaudible] travelling around the U.S. and Canada, teaching summer workshops and things like that. I could kind of play by then. I can't pretend that I really knew what I was doing. And then -- and then in 1980, I got an offer from an outfit called the New York School of Bandura, which -- which was also a school teaching kids to play. And their -- their musical director had had a fight with the administrator and they -- and quit. [Inaudible] looking for somebody in a hurry, and you know, and I happen to turn up. So, the rest is -- the rest is history, as they say. >> Stephen Winick: All right. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes. >> Stephen Winick: So, we're going -- I'm going to ask you some more about that -- that period and the school, but maybe we could talk a little bit about the traditions that your -- your father and grandfather and great uncle brought with them, because there's -- there's you know, words that people may come across when -- when talking about Ukrainian music, like the Kobzar tradition. >> Julian Kytasty: The Kobzar tradition. Okay. >> Stephen Winick: Explain that a little bit. >> Julian Kytasty: Well, yes, the Bandura is considered in some ways a national instrument in Ukraine. And a big reason for that is that for the last few hundred years, right about that time from the 1600s on, the Bandura or instruments much like it were used to accompany epic songs by these blind singers. Kobzari. That's a -- that's a tradition that you find in a lot of -- in a lot of concerts. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: Epic singing by the blind. And the Ukrainian variant of that actually survived right up until the 20th Century. So, we know a little bit more about it than -- about the Kobzari than we do about some other European epic traditions. We know they existed, but we don't really, you know, have recordings or anything. But the Kobzari played a Bandura that looked pretty much like this. And this is a reproduction of the Kobzar instrument. And it's -- you can see, it still has a lot of strings. It has 22 I believe on this one. And it's all-- ^M00:14:48 [ Music ] ^M00:14:58 -and it's -- it's tuned -- right now I have it tuned in a minor mode. ^M00:15:05 [ Music ] ^M00:15:08 Right? Which can work either from there, or-- ^M00:15:13 [ Music ] ^M00:15:24 -and the Kobzari would -- would play and would accompany themselves on this instrument with just a few chords, because that's about all it can play. It plays -- it plays essentially three chords. ^M00:15:39 [ Music ] ^M00:15:57 And so--. >> Stephen Winick: Nice. Yes. So, I mean an interesting thing about the -- the bandura in general and the different kinds of instrument, is that they're somewhat deceptively shaped because a lot of people see that, you know, the tall part and they think that it's fingered like a lute or a guitar, but in fact, each string just plays one note, is that right? >> Julian Kytasty: Right. And here the base, the two base octaves, only have three notes each. Right? And they're-- ^M00:16:31 [ Music ] ^M00:16:33 -and they give you the -- the three pitches-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -and the two different positions that you need to accompany the epics. And then, the -- and generally it's not -- even this type of instrument is generally not stopped on the neck. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: There's a little bit of, you know, a few of the Kobzari did a little bit of that I think, but-- >> Stephen Winick: Interesting. >> Julian Kytasty: -even [inaudible] that the string tension is really too high. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: It needs to be to, to play -- to play in that kind of style that you need to play. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: So -- so this instrument was basically, you know, is used as accompanying instrument for epic song. ^M00:17:24 [ Music ] ^M00:17:29 So, the Kobzari would start maybe on this higher chord. ^M00:17:35 [ Music ] ^M00:17:41 And then down here, there's a [inaudible] so you can get out of the story for a little bit. ^M00:17:47 [ Music and singing ] ^M00:18:05 So -- so it was an accompanying instrument for this type of song. And if this is, as I say, the instrument of the Kobzari, of the blind singers. It's not necessarily the tradition that my father and that whole crowd brought to the United States, because by the mid-20th Century, the instrument had -- actually, in the early 20th Century, the instrument was picked up in the cities. >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: But by sighted people. And basically, it evolved a couple of different variants. And the -- I'll go to the -- to this one here. >> Stephen Winick: Wow. >> Julian Kytasty: This is the -- what is shown generally called the Kiev style bandura, which is -- it basically takes the idea of an all open strings instrument, and tries to answer the question of, "How can you play -- how can you play city music on it?" Well, you put a lot more strings on it, right? So-- ^M00:19:32 [ Music ] ^M00:19:40 Right? So you see, you have a -- a pretty huge range. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: But then -- but also, it's probably not too visible on the camera here, but there's -- there actually two layers of strings, which cross right about here, right? Like it's -- it's designed so that this is the -- this is the line to play for the right hand. ^M00:20:05 And then, right about here, this secondary layer across is which essentially functions exactly the way the black keys do on a piano. Right? So-- ^M00:20:16 [ Music ] ^M00:20:22 -right? >> Stephen Winick: Interesting, yes. >> Julian Kytasty: So, by putting a whole lot of -- a whole lot of -- so, they put a whole lot of strings on it. It made it possible to kind of play, you know, some chromatic chords and you know, if you want to play-- ^M00:20:39 [ Music ] ^M00:20:56 -if you want to play a little bit of Francesca Tarrega [phonetic] or something, you can do that. Right? But -- but what it -- what it loses is first of all, the left hand here is pretty much stuck on the base notes. And there's a couple of ways of tuning them. I use a diatonic tuning which my great uncle developed, which basically continues the tuning of the main row. >> Stephen Winick: I see. >> Julian Kytasty: Right? And gives -- it gives me almost two octaves here, so I can do -- I can also do rhythmic base accompaniments for [inaudible] like-- ^M00:21:39 [ Music ] ^M00:21:47 -right. And you know, this generally will have a little bit more range in the bass. So, but this -- what this instrument does not do terribly well is play the old time music. And what I've found was -- because by the -- by the 60s, 70s, you know, when I was learning, these instruments were actually being produced in Ukraine, and a lot of players were playing them, right? But the price, the tradeoff was that they weren't playing anything remoted connected to the Kobzar tradition. >> Stephen Winick: Interesting. >> Julian Kytasty: So, it -- you know, so it had this nice little bit of kind of wooden embroidery all around it, to make it look like a folk instrument, but it really wasn't, in a lot of ways. So, what I found was -- was that -- I was trying to, you know, I was looking at some of the sources all ready, early on, even before I went to New York, and trying to figure out how some of this Kobzar stuff worked, but it just did not come together on this instrument, right? And really, it was only -- it was only in the 80s when I first encountered reproductions of the old time instruments that it really started to make sense. >> Stephen Winick: Interesting. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes. >> Stephen Winick: Yes, this big one sounds, I mean when you're playing it in the concert, it sounds almost like a harpsichord. It's got that, you know, that very rich-- >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, yes. >> Stephen Winick: -high tension, high string tension sound [inaudible]. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, it's high string tension. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: It's all open strings. There's no dampers, right? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: So, you know, if you want to damp, you have to -- you have to do it-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -one way or the other with you know? So, that's like a big part of playing is figuring out how to get rid of all the extra tone. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: But it's -- yes, so it's -- you know, it's a -- it is -- it's an instrument which, you know, which evolved as an answer to a particular set of-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -goals and questions. And it's been evolved even further than this. There's versions of it now with mechanisms that let you immediately change keys and [inaudible] stuff like that, because really even though -- even with the chromatic layer, you can't really change keys easily on this thing. So, it's -- you know, so it's an instrument with its own tradeoffs and its own -- its own issues. But it's something I grew up playing and so, like went out and played a lot. >> Stephen Winick: Right. Very nice. And like I said, a beautiful sound. I understand what you're saying about it not being perfect for the old time-- >> Julian Kytasty: Yes. >> Stephen Winick: -music but for what it does, it does really beautifully. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes. >> Stephen Winick: So, yes. >> Julian Kytasty: Exactly, exactly. So, you know, it's -- you know I -- I mean I kind of have had this -- I've had the attitude for many years now that you know, that if you -- you know, if you really pay attention, you know, to what the instrument is trying to tell you about what it can do and what it finds difficult to do-- >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: -it'll -- it'll tell you, you know? >> Stephen Winick: That makes sense. >> Julian Kytasty: And you just have to pay attention, you know, or yes. >> Stephen Winick: Yes, and then you mentioned there was a second evolution out of the -- our of the old time instrument as well, which is one you also play. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes. In the 1920s, in [foreign name], there was a -- there was a group of players, mostly students of one -- of one guy. His name was [foreign name], and he'd -- he'd spent a lot of time with the blind singers who still could be found at that time. They were still doing their thing, and through the 1920s. So, he spent a lot of time with them in -- in the early 20th Century. He knew how to play their instrument, this old time instrument, that -- that I showed first. And he played it brilliantly. He played it virtuosically. Right? And then once there was this idea of, in [foreign name], about well, "Where does this instrument go now? How can it do something that's a little more modern? You know, how can it do something that's -- how can we open up new possibilities for it?" his idea was not to change the instrument around very much, you know? He would -- he started playing with the students on the -- on the old time instruments, and then added just -- just very minimal additions here and there. First, just adding -- filling in the bases so you'd have more base notes. So, you'd have a full -- a full scale of base notes. Then -- and then really evolving the idea which [foreign name] Kobzari, [foreign name] Kobzari did practice of, you know, using the left hand up high, and the right hand on the bases and mid-range. So, his idea was that both hands should be able to go freely all over the instrument. Right? And he evolved a style and -- based on that idea and evolved the instrument, you know, to meet the demands of the style which grew organically out of what the blind singers had been doing. >> Stephen Winick: Interesting. >> Julian Kytasty: Now, it was very interesting, and he wrote -- I mean, he composed a few pieces, both for solo and also for ensemble. The group that we talked about earlier that came to the United States actually had a couple of players from the ensemble that he had worked [inaudible]. And then -- and then there we try -- at the beginning of the 30s, they were starting to very carefully experiment with well, you know, maybe, "How do we get out of diatonic modal scale?" And one of the things that they were working with was individual mechanisms, sharping levers, essentially-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -at the strings, right? So, they were just starting to do that. They had a couple of different versions of it. And right about that time, the political situation completely changed. You know, in the 1920s, there was a little bit of a truce in that 400-year war, and Ukrainian culture was allowed to develop fairly -- fairly openly, so long as it stayed -- so long as it stayed within the -- the political limits set by the party. As long as you did that, you could, you know, you could evolve an instrument. You know, you could look at old time music, right? So [inaudible] said, "Well, this is old time music. We're modern now." You know? Right? >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: You know? But we could -- but you could -- you could do that stuff. ^M00:30:03 In the 1930s with Stalin taking power and there was this incredibly horrible reimposition of you know, just all of this interesting work that was being done in the national cultures, all across the Soviet Union, was either outright repressed or just really pushed into smaller and smaller boxes. Yes. You know, the result being the -- so smaller and smaller -- into smaller and smaller boxes, yes. And so, the evolution at that point took a break, you know, from the instrument. And the -- a version of it that I play now, this is what would be called a [foreign name] instrument, is -- this is actually the stringing pattern comes out of the instrument workshop that the banduras chorus that my family came over with, they set up -- the chorus set up an instrument workshop in the displaced persons camps, you know, because you know, to replace their worn out instruments. Right? And since they had a few of these [foreign name] type instruments to look at, they decided that they would build that, you know? And so, they came up with a design that was like this, which is -- has 34 strings. ^M00:31:52 [ Music ] ^M00:31:57 And just a single -- a single layer so at that time -- at that time of stringing, but each string has a -- has a lever here. >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: That can flip it by a half step. >> Stephen Winick: So, you can set it into a key before you start playing a piece. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, that's pretty much how the -- how people have -- how people used it, yes. That's how the -- the ensemble certainly used it. We played this instruments, but that's -- that's what we would do. We would just set it [inaudible]. Like right now -- right now, I'm at one extreme with everything open. It's three flats, and it could go to four sharps if you -- if you -- I shut everything down. >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: But, you know, what -- what I've been doing, you know, once I really got interested in this instrument, you know, I realized that here's this instrument which, it has a little, you know, there's a little bit of repertoire, you know, left over from the 1920s. But not a lot. You know, and you know, so how do you -- there's some -- there's a little bit of pedagogical stuff, the [foreign name], which gives some ideas about what he was doing with the instrument. But how do you -- how do you figure it out. You know, how do you -- how do you get -- how do you play enough different things to-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -figuring out what it does? So, you know, I've of course had to either you know, make my own pieces, or even more, just play a lot of improvisational stuff. So, and that has for me, has been you know, just a heck of an experience, and it just -- letting this thing tell me what it could possibly play, you know? And I mean, it can certainly play -- it could certainly play the -- the old time music. ^M00:34:14 [ Music ] ^M00:34:24 And I can just do the same epic song that -- that I did on the other. On the other instrument. But so, it could certainly do that. It could be used for accompaniments. You can most of the traditional Kobzar stuff on it. You can accompany songs -- folk songs of different kinds that -- particularly on the historical songs, also. You know, so it's the question of, you know, finding the right tune for them and doing them. But also, there's -- there are other possibilities which until -- which haven't yet been totally explored, right? And one of them is, well, what can you do with all these levers besides just tune your -- you know, different -- different diatonic scales? >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: Well, you can tune -- you could do something else. You could do -- let's see here. [Inaudible] what I want to do within the -- how about a -- how about a scale that -- that has -- yes, how about a scale that has -- let's say a C-major scale. I think a C-major scale is a start, but flat -- flat the A, and sharp the D. Right? >> Stephen Winick: Okay. ^M00:36:09 [ Music ] ^M00:36:13 >> Julian Kytasty: Right? We've got a mode that sounds like that. We have a little bit of-- ^M00:36:17 [ Music ] ^M00:36:24 -right? A little -- almost a little bluesy kind of-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -the scale there. But you also have so many leading tones in that scale that almost any random combination of notes will lead to almost any other random combination of notes. So, you can -- you can just go ahead and play, and work out all kinds of -- all kinds of technical issues and textures, and-- ^M00:37:02 [ Music ] ^M00:37:22 -different -- just find out what the instrument can do, you know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And -- so that's -- I've been having a, you know, a pretty rewarding time doing that-- >> Stephen Winick: That's amazing. >> Julian Kytasty: -[inaudible] now. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: Well, I mean that's -- you know, so I'm finding like different -- different scales. I've also needless to say, being in New York, in -- in the late 90s and [inaudible], you know, I was hanging out at some of the downtown free improv scene. And playing with people like Derek Bailey [phonetic] and you know, and others there. >> Stephen Winick: Cool. >> Julian Kytasty: So, you know, so that's also part of it. You know, just the synthetic of, "Okay, here, let's take a [inaudible]," right? >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: I don't care what I just did, right? ^M00:38:23 [ Music ] ^M00:38:27 Right? But you can do that. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. ^M00:38:31 [ Music ] ^M00:38:37 >> Julian Kytasty: Right? With this instrument, you've got to -- have this incredible sound producing thing. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: So, it's been really interesting doing that, and it's been-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -more interesting the last -- the last 10, 15 years, going back and forth frequently to Ukraine. And sharing some of this with -- with players there. Not just bandura players but with other musicians, and with audiences. And using it also in theater music, you know? And showing what it could do, in that context. And you know, it's really -- it really feels like continuation of this -- of this abruptly severed tradition, you know, of the [inaudible] bandura from the -- you know, from the 20s. They were moving in a lot of these directions. [Foreign name] was doing a lot with texture, you know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: He was finding other ways of expressing something musically then, you know, complex, the chordal harmonies, right? And he was -- he was working with some unusual modes. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: One of the people who picked up on him, a player who was in New York in the 50s and 60s, who unfortunately died before I could meet him, but he actually did do, the teaming I just demonstrated, is one that he worked up. >> Stephen Winick: Interesting. >> Julian Kytasty: So, there were people starting to do this. So, you know, so it's -- so that's -- that's another thing that -- another thing that you end up doing, working with this instrument especially in Ukrainian culture, is you have to kind of understand where it fits. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: That whole 400 year story. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And what happened to it, you know? And why -- why the instruments are the way they are. ^M00:40:50 Why the music is the way it is? What else could it possibly do? What was left undone? You know? >> Stephen Winick: Well, another aspect that we haven't talked that much about yet is your singing, which is lovely. And how did you learn to sing in this tradition, and how did you learn Ukrainian growing up as well? >> Julian Kytasty: Well, learning Ukrainian was -- that was the automatic part. Right? I was -- my parents, who knew a little bit of English, you know, well my mother knew it well. My father -- my father less so, but he got to know English quite well. But they were the ones who knew English in the family, and they were -- they both worked, you know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: So, when I was a kid, I was hanging out with grandma, one or the other grandmas, lucky enough to have them both. You know? And with one grandma's sisters, and all these other older relatives that -- and older people, you know, that -- in their circle who, really didn't know English at all. You know? So, I grew up speaking Ukrainian, and I learned English when I went to kindergarten. But the singing, the singing also, you know, I was -- it was just something that everybody around me did. You know? On my mother's -- my father's side, you know, came out with -- came to the United States with a group. On my mother's side, my grandmother and her aunts were all superb choral singers. And they all sung at displaced persons camps. They were -- they were members of probably the best mixed choir, you know, in that immigration. You know, and so they -- so there was a lot of -- a lot of that. And you know, my grandfather before he, became a bandurist and you know, and ended up doing the whole odyssey, you know, that -- during the war. He actually studied before the revolution, he studied in one of the monasteries in Kiev church music. And when he came to Detroit, he started conducting the church choir. You know? So, so that was my early experience. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: My great aunts were all singing in it. My grandfather was conducting it. You know, so I started singing soprano in the choir. >> Stephen Winick: Great. >> Julian Kytasty: And just kept going. >> Stephen Winick: So, you had music on both sides of your family, really. Okay. >> Julian Kytasty: Very much. Yes. Yes. >> Stephen Winick: Yes, absolutely. So, so we talked about your leaving Detroit and going to New York and there's of course that great Ukrainian neighborhood, and Ukrainian crowd there in New York, that strip between St. Mark's Place and 9th on 2nd Avenue where Velselka is an all that stuff. >> Julian Kytasty: That's exactly where -- where I live. >> Stephen Winick: Excellent. So, I grew up in Manhattan myself, so it's my -- my hometown. But -- but how did you find -- did you find any cultural differences between the sort of New York-Ukrainian crowd and the midwestern group that [inaudible]? >> Julian Kytasty: Well, you know, a little bit. But it was -- the -- I mean the differences in the Ukrainian community across North America were not so much from, at least in 1980 when I came to New York, the difference was not so much where they were. You know, but kind of where they came from. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: There's a -- there was a cultural difference between the -- between the pre-World War II immigrants who were mostly economic immigrants from what used to be Austria, Hungary, and then Poland after the war, and now the western part of Ukraine. The -- there was a big difference between them and the post-war displaced persons, who were from -- were from all over Ukraine. Although the -- still with more -- more people from the west, simply because they had more time to get out, you know, when -- when the red army started moving east, a lot of people just decided they were going to take their chances and try to get -- try to get into western Europe. You know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: So -- so, the ones who -- so, not all that many people made it from [inaudible] Ukraine, and yet that's where both sides of my family are from. And the community I grew up in in Detroit, that particular parish, where my grandfather was conducting and great aunts were singing in the choir, was made up primarily of people who'd -- who came from Soviet, eastern Ukraine, and they -- so a very large part of the families were people who'd -- who'd been caught up in the labor conscriptions. Almost everybody, you know? That was about the only way you could make it-- >> Stephen Winick: Sure. >> Julian Kytasty: -or places like [foreign name], where my mother was from, or near [foreign name], where my father's family is from. But yes, so -- so there was a little bit of -- a little bit of a difference there, you know? Like in New York, was -- New York was actually the first time I had to -- I had to deal extensively with some of these other -- some of these other parts of the Ukrainian immigration with the-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -the staying on 7th Street initially in a room, in an apartment of, you know, of people who were, I think they were 80-something and 70-something a couple. And I think he had -- he had come from Ukraine when he was like 4 or something, and she was born in New York. Yes. Right? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And so, I mean, that was a bit of a culture shock. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And you know, and then -- the -- yes, so it was -- yes, New York, but you know, what was amazing about it in retrospect, was that you know, here I was at 21-year old kid, you know? Who could kind of, sort of, you know, play this instrument and maybe teach a few [inaudible] to kids, and yet there was enough of a community there, enough support, enough demand, for you know, some kind of -- for that kind of music, that I was able to keep going. You know? That I was able to eventually -- eventually more or less make a living with this. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. Well, I mean, pretty early you were able to, for example, tell us about that town hall concert that you organized in the 1980s. I mean, that had an enormous number of players that you found. >> Julian Kytasty: Well, yes, yes, yes. Well, what that came out of was we had -- that was in the early 80s of the biggest part of the -- of you know, my extended generation, of you know, the kids who were born in -- in the United States, but to parents who'd come -- who'd come over, out of the DP camps. The biggest part of that generation was hitting their teens, you know, the years when you could actually you know, make some kind of a bandura ensemble out of them. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And there was a lot of demand for it. And we were doing a lot of summer camps at that time. We started doing a big one in Pennsylvania in 1979, and from a couple of years of that, there were -- you know, there were you know, dozens of fairly proficient players, and all over the U.S. and Canada, maybe you know, hundreds of kids who are going through workshops and -- or going to regular lessons. And so, -- so we briefly formed this organization called The Society of Ukrainian Banduras, which as one of its big things put together a couple of huge concerts. You know, this was still the idea if you know, the more bandura players you can put in one place, the better, you know? ^M00:50:54 You know, the nightmare of course that, you know -- you know, if you organize this all think of the great picture they're going to get, the great photo, right, of all these kids in national costume with the instruments. But you know, the nightmare of those concerts was teeming with all those bandurae [phonetic]. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: So without-- >> Stephen Winick: I was thinking just -- yes. That's amazing. Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: Before the little chord, the [inaudible], you know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes, yes. I was just thinking of the -- the outrageous number of strings. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, [inaudible], exactly. You know, I mean the -- those -- those big cave style instrument-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -mostly had like 55 strings, right? >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, so multiply that by 125. That's just what we had on stage at Town Hall. You know? That gets -- that gets pretty extreme. Now, that was a [inaudible] being a real operation, you know, trying to, you know, it had to be meticulously planned, and you know, and there was a whole team that did it. You know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: But, you know, it got done. And we were able to do these. So, we did -- we did one concert in -- this would have been Christmastime 1983, you know, the holidays there. We did I think five or six numbers in Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto for a big Ukrainian World Congress, that was going on there. So, that was the first time we did something like that, and I think we had even more there, 100 -- almost 150. But and my great uncle who'd, [foreign name], who was a composer and conductor and had been conducting that banduras chorus, based out of Detroit, you know, for -- for all those years since, you know, since the war, he was still around, and he conducted that Maple Leaf Gardens concert. That was actually about the last thing that he did. And we already started planning the Town Hall one, and by -- by next year -- by the next year, he'd passed away already. But we just went ahead and did it anyway. So, I was -- we had several conductors. I was one of them. A couple of my younger -- a couple of my friends from my groups in New York, and my father conducted a couple of numbers. >> Stephen Winick: Great. >> Julian Kytasty: So, you know, so that was one heck of a thing, you know, to just -- but you know, that was -- that was the kind of thing we did then. And these ensemble things. And by 1987, '88, that whole wave had completely passed, and we couldn't find a student with a searchlight, you know? >> Stephen Winick: Wow. >> Julian Kytasty: And you know, so the New York Bandura -- New York School of Bandura went into hibernation for a while. I couldn't make ends meet in New York. I ended up going to Canada for a while and teaching-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -I had a school up there for a few years. You know? So, and it's all cyclical. >> Stephen Winick: Yes, yes, absolutely. Well, one thing I found really interesting and wanted to talk -- you to talk about a little bit was that combination of sort of concert tour and field work that you did in Brazil and Argentina. Because that is just I think like folklorists would be really attracted to that. So, how did that come about and when was that? >> Julian Kytasty: That was exactly this time that I -- that I was talking about, '87, '88, when we weren't really getting much happening in New York. So, I was at loose ends, and so was our administrator for New York -- the School of Bandura, a man named Nick Chorney [phonetic], amazing -- amazing guy. And he'd -- he took -- he took a trip down to -- down to Argentina and Brazil one year, because he'd heard that were large Ukrainian communities there. And low and behold, there were. And there were hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians down there, mostly in rural areas, although some had moved into the big cities. But mostly, there was a lot of stalled rural communities. Mostly these were people who'd come from Austria, Hungary, you know, back at the turn -- at the turn of 19th, 20th Century. At the same time that a lot of Ukrainians were going out to the Canadian prairies, where I'd also been already and done a lot of work out there. But the difference was that the ones who went to Canada, you know, they -- they had a tough first winter, you know, in their dugouts, on the -- in their [inaudible] huts on the prairies, but after that, the railroad came through, you know? And Canada kind of caught up with [inaudible]. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: In Brazil, they were pretty much just dropped in the middle of the forest, in southern Brazil and [inaudible] Province, and left to fend for themselves. You know, so -- so, it's a little bit different history, you know? And at the time that I went, in 1987, some of those communities were just getting -- had just had the electricity get to them. >> Stephen Winick: Wow. >> Julian Kytasty: So, you know, so there was like -- there were still like just you know, one or two radios in the whole -- in the whole village. And that kind of stuff. So, that was -- it was an interesting time to go there. Very interesting. I went there because Mr. Chorney had -- he saw a need in the urbanizing Ukrainian communities there. People moving into the cities -- well, they'd come into the cities, and then they would immediately assimilate, you know, to either Spanish or Portuguese speaking. But into the local city culture. And he figured that if it worked in North America to you know, use instruments like the Bandura to give a -- a kind of point of cohesion for some of the teenagers, the kids, and -- so they could have something Ukrainian in their lives, [inaudible] keep them involved with the community, he thought that would be a good thing to do. So, you know, being the way he was, he immediately raised a whole bunch of money. Bought -- had donated, you know, [inaudible] for a whole -- for like a 100 banduras. I think it eventually ended up being more. He put my friend Ken Bloom [phonetic] who was living in New York at the time, I don't know if you knew Ken at that time, you know, but he was -- he was building some banduras and Chorney had him build I think 30 or 40 of these little children -- the children's [inaudible] bandura, you know? So, he had those. And so, he sent all these instruments down there, and then sent me down after the instruments to do -- so I did workshops in all these -- in Buenos Aires, in small towns in Misiones Province, which is where the biggest part of the settlement is in Argentina. Then on the other side of -- of the border in [foreign name] Province, where there's just still like whole areas that, you know, it's like that you picked up -- if you like picked up a whole little administrative, you know, like a township or-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -whatever out of -- out of -- out of 1910 [foreign name], right, and dropped it in the middle of the forest in Brazil. >> Stephen Winick: Right. >> Julian Kytasty: You know? It's just a -- you know, it's pretty amazing. So, anyway the -- so what I ended up doing was teaching choruses, but then I also -- I also would go around to a lot of these smaller places, even out into the villages, and play, you know? ^M01:00:30 And then in those villages, sometimes there'd be you know, sometimes there'd be a chance to record somebody, some local singers or musicians. You know, so I was doing a little bit of -- a little bit of that as well. And eventually the recordings ended up in the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies in Edmonton. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And I had just a -- quite an amazing -- quite an amazing experience, you know? >> Stephen Winick: It just -- yes, it just sounds so fascinating. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, I mean, just -- it was. I mean, just -- I mean literally we would, you know, we'd pull up to -- pull up to the village church in a beat up old VW Beetle, you know, that, you know, they were driving me around in, and ring the bell. You know, just start ringing and ringing the bell, and you know, and after a few minutes, people would come to see what was going on. And then -- and they'd say, "Well, this guy from New York is here. He wants to play some Ukrainian music for you." Okay, [inaudible]. That seemed interesting. So, you know, so then just wait around and about -- in about half an hour, an hour, you know, whoever wanted to come would be there. And I'd play for them right there, outside on the steps. >> Stephen Winick: And did they know about Bandura music? I mean, had they -- did they remember--? >> Julian Kytasty: Not so much because they were again, they were mostly from the Austria, Hungarian part of the country, and the -- the Kobzari tradition actually is for all that it had became a national symbol, it became that for, not because there was one in every house, you know? It was actually a very localized tradition, kind of between Kiev, [foreign name], you know, a lot of the names you're hearing on the news, you know-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -with the area kind of east of -- immediately east of Kiev. You know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And down to the -- to the beginnings of the [inaudible] down to [foreign name] and [foreign name]. So, that was primarily where the traditionalists -- it was focused, so the people who'd gone to Brazil of course, came from -- they came from a rural part of the country in which they had no contact with that other rural part of the country. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: You know? And so, yes. So, for them, it was like a new thing, you know, but they connected to the songs. You know? >> Stephen Winick: Sure. >> Julian Kytasty: What was really interesting was how much -- how much they connected specifically to the Kobzari material. You know, like I'd sing this epic song about -- about a widow with three sons, you know, and she gets old, and the sons decide, you know, too much trouble taking care of her, you know, throw her out of the house, and of course horrible things happen to them, you know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: So, that song -- that song they really, really connected to. [Inaudible] And humorous songs, you know? Like some of these groups who had humorous songs which have a village setting. They got it, you know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. That's amazing. Well, the other thing that I really wanted you to talk a little bit about was your touring in Ukraine as one of the first American Ukrainian artists to really do that. So, talk about how that happened. I guess that was a little later in '89 or so. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, that was almost immediately after. You know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: I actually, I think both myself and Mr. Chorney were thinking that we'd be continuing this project, you know? I went down there twice in '87 and in '88 for a couple of months each time. But by 1989, it was still the Soviet Union, but this was -- if people know the history, this was already [inaudible] going on and you know, people were starting to lose their fear a little bit, you know? And it was possible to do more -- more and more things, and certainly with Ukrainian culture, it was -- it was starting to be possible to do things, you know, without dealing -- without being immediately, you know, subject to oppression. So, in 1989, I had a chance to go and go over there for the first time through Canadian Ukrainian join venture out of Toronto, actually called [foreign name], which was trying to -- trying to make -- make some kind of cultural activity and exchange happen between North America and Ukraine. So, we were their guinea pigs, right? There was a trio, myself, and other you know, very good [inaudible], Victor [inaudible] and a friend of ours, a singer from the chorus called [foreign name]. So, three voices, two banduras, and we -- we put together a program of -- especially of stuff that would not have been heard, you know, very much in Soviet Ukraine. So, on the bandura, the thing would be like Victor played some of [foreign name] music. So, and demonstrated the [foreign name] of bandura. He was already playing that. He grew up playing that. So, and I was still mostly playing the other kind, the Kiev [foreign name], but -- but I would show then some of the compositions by people like my great uncle, some of the music -- some of the music from the -- which was created in North America or in the displaced persons camps. You know, and then we'd do -- we also put together a program which had a lot of historical songs, a lot of material for the Kobzari repertoire or these religious, moralistic songs. Had a few of those. We -- we each new a couple of epics, you know, so we would do those. And we went to -- you know, we went over there and ended up -- ended up playing about a 100 concerts. >> Stephen Winick: Wow. >> Julian Kytasty: [Inaudible] of '89, '90, we did a couple of trips. And you know, just -- and all over, all over, all over the country. I mean, not just in places like you'd be able [inaudible] over there [inaudible], but also Kiev, [foreign name], [foreign name], you know, even villages out around -- you know, and that was the best part that a lot of the -- you know, where we got to go to a lot of places. Not everywhere, but a lot of places. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And see the [inaudible], see the -- the regional capital, some regional towns and also get out into the smaller towns and even villages, and a lot of places. And -- and we got to see what all that looked like, circa 1989, '90, as the Soviet Union was winding down. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. It must have been kind of extraordinary to bring Ukrainian culture. You know, this culture that you'd been so steeped in, and to actually get to go there and present it to people there. >> Julian Kytasty: Yes, it was -- you know, it was just -- I mean, I can't even -- you know, I can't even find words for it, you know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: It was just, just really [inaudible] mind dwelling is about right. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: That's -- and that's also when I -- when I really -- that was my very first time in the country. ^M01:10:18 [Inaudible] been before, but I hadn't. And that's where I met you know, a lot of the people and still -- I still consider my friends. I'm still in touch with. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: You know, whom I'm writing right now to see, you know, where they are, how they're doing. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: You know? But also who I've stayed in touch with over the years, and I kept going back and meeting more and more different kinds of people, the theater, you know, the theater crowd, through the theater projects that I did. And just -- I've done a couple of very interesting electroacoustic collaborations with people doing electronic music there. You know, that just fits so well with some of the things I'm doing [inaudible]. >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: And doing right now. So -- so really, I mean since those trips in '89 and '90, I've really -- I realized that I really was you know -- the work I was doing was part of this culture, you know? And I mean, in other ways, it's also part of the North American culture, right? But the -- but that felt very much at home working with people in Ukraine in, you know, on -- in this -- in the music that [inaudible]. I probably felt a part of -- a part of the cultural development [inaudible] about 30 years. >> Stephen Winick: Well, and it should be said you received an honor from President Zelensky not that long ago. Explain that if you would? >> Julian Kytasty: Well, the -- well the -- it's -- yes, they made me an Honored Artist of Ukraine, which is, you know, I mean it's -- on the one hand it's -- it is kind of a throwback to these Soviet kind of titles-- >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: -[inaudible] they haven't -- they haven't entirely you know, gotten rid of. So, there's that a bit. But you know, when it was -- when they said they wanted to give it to me, I was thinking, "You know, this isn't just for me, " you know? >> Stephen Winick: Yes. >> Julian Kytasty: Really this is for all of those people, you know, whose --you remained unrecognized or who did their work far away from Ukraine. Yes. It's for all of them. >> Stephen Winick: Thanks once again to Julian Kytasty for this wonderful interview and for the beautiful concert that you've put together for us. >> Julian Kytasty: And thank you. Thank you for an interesting -- interesting chat.