"I'll strike my palms till they ache... till the rusalki hear and depart" "The mowers cut the green grass till blood poured down with their sweat..." "We've transformed a girl into a young woman" "Is the master of this house home?"

Chornobyl Songs Project

Village Songs from Ukraine performed by Ensemble Hilka (NYC)
led by music director & song collector Yevhen Yefremov (Ensemble Drevo, Kyiv)
with projected images by Jim Krantz and Mykola Seminoh
assembled by Virlana Tkacz and Mikhail Shraga of Yara Arts Group

Hilka Ensemble
Suzanna Dennison, Brian Dolphin, Cherrymae Golston, J.R. Hankins,
Julian Kytasty, Eva Salina Primack, Ethel Raim, Willa Roberts,
Caitlin Romtvedt, Maria Sonevytsky, Nadia Tarnawsky, Shelley Thomas,
and Yevhen Yefremov

December 1: Princeton University
December 2: Ukrainian Museum, NY
December 3: Washington, Ethical Society
December 4: Philadelphia Crossroads Music
January 28 Yara's Re-Imagine Ourselves Festival NY

PRESS:

The concert showcased, village songs from the Clrornobyl and Polissia regions that had been collected between1979 and l998 by ethnomusicologist Yevhen Yefremov, a founding member of Ensemble Drevo from Kyiv. The performance featured the Ensemble Hilka: Suzanna Dennison, Brian Dolphin, Cherrymae Golston, J. R. Hankins, Julian Kytasty, Eva Salina Primack, Ethel Raim, Willa Roberts, Caitilin Romtvedt, Maria Sonevytsky, Nadia Tarnawsky, Shelley Thomas and Yevhen Yefremov…
Under the musical direction of Mr. Yefremov, the group presented a song cycle of traditional and ritual songs that would have been performed in almost any Polissian village up until April 26, 1986. On that day, the nuclear disaster at Chornobyl changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
The work of Mr. Yefremov has been transformed into the preservation of a way of life that has been lost the "the Zone." Working with the ensemble, he explored polyphonic and heterophonic singing traditions of that region, incorporating the variations and improvisation that are so essential to a living folk song tradition. Virlana Tkacz and Yara Arts Group put together the visual projections with Mikhail Shraga. Many of the striking visuals showing scenes from the Chornobyl region were by Jim Krantz or Mykola Seminoh…
The wedding song cycle was the highlight of the evening. Not only was the audience privy to hearing songs by the married for the young woman about to be married, but also to witnessing a small portion of the wedding ritual…
Listening to the songs, one was immediately aware that not only were these songs sung loudly, they were sung with power. Besides seeing the performers and hearing them, one could also feel them. Their voices expressed the energy and the power of the songs….
Traditions are long as the world gets smaller and this process was hastened here by the Chornobyl nuclear disaster that took place 25 years ago. That event created an uninhabitable are – a zone whose residents, customs and traditions have been scattered about the world. The artists beautifully brought them back together so that they may live on with us.
Ihor Slabicky, The Ukrainian Weekly, February 26, 2012

for more information on: the Chornobyl Song Project A Year in Song
Dec 2011 in New York, Princeton, Washington & Philadelphia
for Hilka's performance in Jan 2012 at Yara's Re-Imagine:Ourselves Festival