To my ears, the most substantive musical endeavor that has taken place within the sphere of Ukrainian traditional music in the last half decade or so has been Susanna Karpenko's ongoing project entitled Patterned Songs.

Not only has this project consistently proven itself from its inception to be of the highest artistic quality, it also augurs by this same token a considerable measure of promise I believe for the future of Ukrainian traditional music, and for that of Ukrainian music overall.

And an important contributing factor in all this, furthermore, is the involvement in the project of a significant number of Ukraine's most dynamic and talented musicians—first of all, Karpenko herself of course.

What the Patterned Songs project has essentially amounted to up to this point then, as far as I am able to discern, is a running series of live performances, linked together by what would seem to be some manner of overarching conception, centered on Karpenko's creative interpretations of a carefully-considered selection of traditional songs. Although this selection is definitely rooted in Ukrainian traditions, it is not limited to this sphere.

Indeed, some of the most interesting and exciting pieces featured in the project are derived from the many musical cultures that overlap with or are adjacent to Ukraine's primary indigenous musical culture—cultures that exist either coincidently within the borders of Ukraine itself, and/or adjacently within the “larger neighborhood” of Eastern Europe: e.g., Crimean Tatar, Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian and Polish.

And even more interesting and exciting are those moments in which Karpenko creatively interweaves within the seams of certain Ukrainian traditional songs portions of other songs—or at least aspects or elements utilized therein—that stem from these “coincident” or “adjacent” cultures.

In addition to this, Karpenko undertakes in many of her Patterned Songs—inclusive of both those that derive from Ukrainian as well as those from “coincident” or “adjacent” musical cultures—what in my view represents a subtly wrought recasting of traditional music so as to in effect transform it into an (at least partially) aestheticist-oriented artistic form.

And thus in light of these aspects, what I think it can be concluded that Karpenko is intent on doing with this project as a whole is to actively explore a set of hypothetical possibilities, so to speak, by which the boundary lines of Ukrainian traditional music might conceivably be broadened.

Proceeding in a much more circumspect fashion than generally obtains for those artists whose primary commitment is to an ambitious, exacting experimentalism—and thus it might be said, working very much from within the parameters of the Tradition itself [j]—Karpenko nevertheless can be seen to be proposing, in what strikes me as a very thoughtful manner, various potential expansions upon the territories this Tradition encompasses.

Or, at least: all this is my surmise of what this project is about.

I have in point of fact found very little in the way of descriptive or explanatory written material (in any language) that lays out in specific terms what Ms. Karpenko's thinking is on the matter—how her own personal understanding of what she is up to in the Patterned Songs project might be formulated [CZX].

What I have tried to construct in lieu of this, therefore, is my own take on what this project seems to be doing, drawn from the only concrete evidence that happens to be extensively available—that is, the running series of performances that actually comprise the Patterned Songs project.

And what I am going to put forward here in this essay, then, is precisely that: What I believe represents an accurate summarization of Karpenko's Patterned Songs project in terms of its general conception, based on the body of performances that that are currently extant on YouTube.

In the process, I will also endeavor to put together a sort of provisional catalog of songs, performance dates, etc.—a tentative videography, in other words—so as to document and thus serve as ongoing reference for this (still growing) body of performances.

Since I believe that no small part of the future directionality that Ukrainian traditional music most likely should take is at least adumbrated or given suggestive indication of in this ongoing project—and that much can be learned from the project's substantiveness and overall aesthetic achievement by those participating in all of the other sectors of the Ukrainian music making world too—this level of focused attention seems to me very much justifiable.

Incidentally, the two videos embedded above—“Sidit Zayets Na Verbi” and “Yavrumla Salgirnin Boyu” —that I have selected for a “close reading” so as to illustrate the comprehensive approach and sensibility that the project embodies, stand assuredly as what I feel are two of the finest performances thus far given in the project.

Both of these pieces are in fact taken from the same concert that occured at the Ivan Honchar Museum in Kyiv at some point in early 2016.

One of the most impressive aspects of the Patterned Songs project, however, is the extensive degree of variation that Karpenko has employed: variations in terms of personnel—which is also to say, in instrumentation—as well as in arrangement, and in interpretative and stylistic approach. One thus gets the sense that she is thereby engaged in a process of trying out different alternatives, painstakingly searching for the best, most efficacious mode of performance.

And considering all of these different facets in aggregate, then, it is my judgment—having seen and heard on numerous occasions over the course of a year or so just about every performance of the project that can be found on YouTube—that the personnel, instrumentation, arrangement and the enacted performance itself in these two videos are for the most part unequaled elsewhere.

It's worth stating, however, that there are any number of other performances that I might well have choosen instead—another impressive aspect of the “Patterned Songs” project is, as already noted, its near uniform excellence.

One should moreover keep in mind that I have already picked out another piece from the project, “Viryazhala Mati Sina”, as the focus of a previous essay, the very name of which—“The Most Extraordinary Four Minutes in Ukrainian Music”—should itself indicate where I would situate this piece in any ranking of “finest performances” from the project.

Yet, even though this performance of “Viryazhala Mati Sina” (which took place at the Les Kurbas Theatre in Lviv back in November of 2013) stands in my view as the veritable “crown jewel” of the project overall—and as a result, definitely demanded a separate discussion all its own—I still feel that in terms of the full gamut of different facets just specified, these two performances held at the Ivan Honchar museum in early 2016 do represent the best selections by which to demonstrate the entire spectrum of what this project has thus far accomplished [h].

In any event, on to my summarized overview of the project:

It occurs to me that perhaps the most appropriate place to start in trying to attain some sense of what this project is all about might be with the title that Ms. Karpenko has chosen for the project.

One of the few bits of descriptive text that I was able to find on the Patterned Songs project comes from the website of an annual Polish music festival, Mazurkas of the World, that Karpenko performed at a few years back, along with the two musicians she has recruited as collaborators on the project more frequently than any others: the violinist Serhiy Okhrimchuk and woodwindist Maxsym Berezhniuk. This text describes the Patterned Songs project as “present[ing] an ornamental mosaic of traditional songs (emphasis mine)”.

On a VKontakte page that apparently Karpenko set up herself to promote a particular performance of the project at Kyiv Mohyla University back in June 2011, there is a description in Ukrainian, which the extremely inadequate Google Translate site renders as “[s]ound fancy tunes Ukrainian, Serbian, Tatar Folklore” (emphasis mine). I am guessing that this would be better rendered, for what it's worth, as something more like: “What you will hear are fancy Ukrainian, Serbian and Tatar folkloric tunes”.

The word that is rendered as “fancy”, however, is орнаментальні, which my extremely inadequate grasp of Ukrainian knows would be directly transliterated as “ornamentalni”—a word that is obviously derived from the same (originally Latin) source as the English term “ornamental”.

The actual Ukrainian phrase that Karpenko specifies as the title of her project is Візерунчасті пісні (Vizerunchasti Pisni). I have seen this phrase translated as “Figured Songs”, as well as “Patterned Songs”. I have choosen to go with the latter translation as it is I think more comprehensible; “figured”, although not entirely incoherent, is in fact a rather uncommon word in English. One would indeed almost never come across it in colloquial usage, I don't think, and would likely only find it here or there in certain literary, especially poetic, modes of expression.

Furthermore, “візерунчасті” is pretty obviously related to the Ukrainian term “візерунковий”, which Google Translate indeed renders as “patterned”.

The series of synonyms that Google gives for the adjective “patterned” are “decorated, ornamented, fancy, adorned, embellished”. And the definition it gives for the term “ornamental”, moreover, is “serving or intended as an ornament; decorative”.

At any rate, what I deduce from all this, philologically speaking [t], is that the operative sense here of “візерунчасті” is probably something along the lines of: “doing something extra, in terms of decorating or ornamenting or embellishing, to that which was initially plain”.

“Plain”, by the way, is defined by Google as “not decorated or elaborate; simple or ordinary in character” (emphasis mine). “Plain” does tend to have pejorative connotations in many circumstances, of course, as does “simple” and “ordinary”, so perhaps a better antonym in English for what Karpenko has in mind by her use of the word “візерунчасті” would actually be raw.

Among the synonyms that Thesaurus.com gives for the word “raw” are “organic” and “natural”. And these two terms come fairly close to encapsulating what I take to be the broader conceptual region that undergirds and gives ideational expression to the world of traditional music culture—in its strictly “avtentyka” version at least (“avtentyka” = “authentic”).

Hence, it might be thought that what Karpenko more or less intends by the term “patterned” (assuming this as a good translation of “візерунчасті”) has to do with an approach to “avtentyka” traditional music that rather than simply leaving “as is”, in its “raw” or “natural” state—which after all is the whole objective of the “avtentyka”/“Preservationist” orientation —aims to do something more, something extra to it. It aims to apply to this “raw” or “natural” mode of music, that is to say, some form of decoration or ornamentation or embellishment.

Or, in the terms that a Structural Anthropologist might use, it could be said that what Karpenko is doing in the “Patterned Songs” project is offering up a “cooked”, as opposed to a “raw” version of traditional music.

And this would in point of fact tend to suggest that the manner of music making that Karpenko endeavors to feature in this project bears at least some relation to what I have designated as the “Renovationist” approach to traditional music.

In another essay on this site—entitled “The Tradition”—I depict the “Renovationist” approach to traditional music as emerging in Eastern European culture near the end of the 19th century as a species of Late Romanticism, in conjunction with the rise of the so-called 'Folk Orchestras' or 'Folk Ensembles'. As I stated in that essay, the “Renovationist” approach, which can be seen as essentially “[t]he earliest mode devised so as to try to perpetuate traditional music within the context of [the contemporary world]”, generally assumed that traditional music in its “raw” state required “some degree of 'dressing up'—that is to say, some manner of reconfiguration or reconstruction, of renovation in short...in order to render this music 'presentable' ...within the boundaries of official 'high culture' ”.

What this approach thus resulted in were attempts at polishing up what were taken to be the raw, earthy, perhaps even uncouth aspects of traditional music, by way of orchestral transmutations mostly, so as to smooth over the “rough edges” of these aspects, as it were [f].

Both the so-called “Folk Orchestras”, and the version of this “Renovationist” approach that informed them, were then adopted by the Soviet state as its primary mechanism by which to present traditional music—albeit it did so not in accordance with any Late Romantic sensibility (which would have of course been viewed as the height of decadent “bourgeois culture”), but in terms of a much different set of motivations, reflective of nothing so much, I believe, as crass political strategizing.

Yet, even though it does seem fair to say that what Karpenko is doing in her Patterned Songs project is indeed “dressing up” traditional music—in the sense that was just discussed of decorating or ornamenting or embellishing its native “raw” character—and thus does more or less comport with the “Renovationist” approach very broadly speaking, it should also be understood I think that her own particular version of this approach is quite a bit different from that which informed the “Folk Orchestras”, in either their Soviet or Late Romantic modalities.

Hence, rather than the wholesale reconstruction of traditional music that was characteristic of both these versions of the “Folk Orchestras”, what Karpenko is I think in pursuit of instead in the Patterned Songs project—most probably as a consequence of her strong background and continuing involvement, in addition what she is doing with the Patterned Songs project, in the most rigorous modes of “avtentyka” music making—is a great deal more subtle and constrained in its “renovation”, or at least “amendation” of traditional music.

Indeed, much of what is put forward in the Patterned Songs project would seem upon first listen to be fairly straightforward traditional music, rendered in relatively unvarnished form. It is only with closer, more focused attention that one actually begins to realize the variety of supplementary nuances that have been applied to this music, in terms of somewhat more complex arrangements, more diverse instrumentation, as well as with regards to an abundance of sonic textures that have been altered in minute ways.

It might be thus claimed that what Karpenko is doing, then, is taking instances of traditional music in their “plain”, “raw” or “avtentyka” form, and instead of trying to impose upon them any sort of significant overhaul, merely applies certain “decorative” or “ornamental” touches. The approach she is taking might thus be described metaphorically as studding the surfaces of these songs with bits and pieces of precious minerals, so to speak, quarried from what was defined at the start of this essay as an aestheticist orientation to music making.

In this way, Karpenko can in fact be seen I believe as not only working well within the parameters of the traditional music sphere, but as even remaining quite close to the specific ways and means, which is to say, the basic communicative terms that comprise an “avtentyka” method to traditional music making.

And although, in contradistinction to the orchestrated versions of traditional music that the “Folk Choirs” put forth, the music that Karpenko presents in her Patterned Songs project does not have much of any direct relation to the symphonic music of the “High Art” Classical realm, it does nonetheless in certain ways manage to situate itself at least partially within what I designate as the “Art” domain of music making.

As I detailed in my prior essay on Karpenko, what I mean by the “Art” domain is a sector of the music making world in which aesthetic concerns tend to predominate, involving a “concentrated focus of aesthetic intention” that is not at all customary for other sectors.

The point should be made once more, though, that even while this “aesthetic concentration” does distinguish the manner of music making featured in the Patterned Songs project from strictly rendered “avtentyka” music—and in so doing, lends the title of the project the larger part of its operative meaning, it would seem—what Karpenko is doing here amounts really only to discrete “touches” of aestheticist elements, which work to enliven a greater context that remains at the same time very much within the greater environs of traditional music making.

There is another way, likewise mentioned in the opening paragraphs of this essay, by which Karpenko can be said to be “doing something extra” with reference to the usual state of affairs that prevails within the “avtentyka”-oriented realm of traditional music: This is precisely her incorporation of a selection of songs drawn from musical cultures “coincident” with and/or “adjacent” to Ukraine's primary indigenous culture.

While this aspect does not pertain so much to any sense of “decorating” or “ornamenting” traditional music—the primary sense that the word patterned would seem to point to—it could all the same be seen as a means by which to potentially embellish or, as it might be put, enlargen the stockpile of songs that make up Ukrainian traditional music culture.

Thus it could be said I think that Karpenko is hypothetically proposing in the Patterned Songs project a sort of expanded or supplemental version of Ukrainian traditional music—Ukrainian traditional music plus, so to speak.

And these two aspects taken together, then—the creative application of aestheticist elements and an expanded, enlarged song culture—can be seen as articulating in fine the general relationship to “the Tradition” that I believe Karpenko, as a solo artist, is essentially working out in the Patterned Songs project:

I wil try to explain what I mean by this by way of a somewhat generalized and drawn-out formulation:

It might well be set down that the foundational postulation that all those in any way concerned with Ukrainian traditional music and its continuing development—all those operating in accordance to an “avtentyka”-oriented standpoint, at least—would have to first of all stand in agreement with is that the Tradition must be preserved.

That is to say, if we are to remain in some manner of substantial contact with traditional music culture, in a manner that has at least some substantial connection to the “avtentyka” forms and approaches that this traditional music has hitherto taken, then these forms and approaches need to be preserved in one way or another, to one degree or another.

Traditional music must in other words find ways of being perpetuated in the contemporary world on its own communicative terms, of keeping itself alive as a communicative form through the ways and means, the specific forms and approaches, that concretely constitute an “avtentyka” approach to traditional music making.

In terms other than its own, terms that don't directly arise from or pertain to its own activities, the Tradition can as it happens quite possibly manage to find a place for itself within the world of today by way of other means:

Aspects of the Tradition can be given contemporary expression, for example, through both a “Mainstreamist” approach—which combines elements of traditional music with the forms and modalities of global popular music—as well as an “Avant Gardist” approach—which pursues this same endeavor through an experimentalist treatment of traditional music.

The primary task of the “Preservationist” approach that undergirds the “Avtentyka Revival Movement”, on the other hand, is—to quote again from the same essay just referenced above—to “directly transfer[...] or carry[...] over into the present day as much as is possible the true, 'authentic'...mode of performance practice that obtains for...traditional music in its 'raw' or 'native state' ”.

As just alluded to above, Karpenko actually has a strong role herself in furthering these “Preservationist” objectives, as a member of Bozhychi, one of the most prominent “avtentyka ensembles” currently operating in Ukraine, which she in fact helps direct with her husband Ilya Fetisov.

And it's worth noting, moreover, that Bozhychi, to an extent perhaps exceeding that any of the other leading “avtentyka ensembles”, would seem to be particularly focused, in what I think would have to be called a highly conscientious and self-conscious manner, on this primary task of maintaining “the true, 'authentic' ...mode of performance practice that obtains for...traditional music in its 'raw' or 'native state' ”

Yet, what one should hasten to add to all this is that a second postulation vis-a-vis the health and welfare of Ukrainian traditional music and its continuing development needs also to be established, alongside this most fundamental one, and that second postulation can be expressed as follows:

In order to truly live in the contemporary world, and not be merely a static entity, fit only for retrospective, antiquarian regard, traditional music must at the same time be possessed of some degree of dynamism—it must, in short, continue to grow. And in order for that to happen, it seems to me that it must do so again, on its own terms—which means that it must do so internally, working from inside the “Preservationist” movement itself [r].

It is precisely this endeavor that I believe Karpenko's Patterned Songs project is in fact focused on —although again, it's important to understand the essentially propositional character of what she is doing here:

What it seems to me she is doing, that is to say, is putting forth possbilities for expansion, building up something like a standing reserve from which gradually, over the course of time, certain aspects here and certain aspects there might be taken up and adopted, integrated thereby into standard traditional music practice. This is a process, it might be noted, that not infrequently occurs largely or wholly without much immediate notice, “under the radar” as it were (it then becomes the job of able music writers to knowledgeably take note of such things).

And this is just to say that the Tradition is by its very nature, after all, necessarily conservative—or as it might be better put, “preservative”.

But to try to give a more precise depiction of the sort of process I have in mind here:

With respect to the aspect that proposes an expanded, enlarged song culture, it doesn't seem probable that every song Karpenko has selected from “neighboring” traditions will be accepted all at once into the specific stockpile of songs that make up Ukrainian traditional music culture, so as to for all intents and purposes effectively become part of Ukrainian traditional music. Yet one or two of them might do so at some point—even if in some reconfigured form—with possibly more to follow at some later juncture.

And with respect to the aspect involving aestheticist elements creatively applied to certain traditional Ukrainian songs—elements such as more complex and elaborated sonic textures, including possibly even some instruments not traditionally typical in Ukrainian traditions; or more theatrical approaches to singing, to reference two elements which were dealt with in my previous essay on Karpenko—even though again, such elements might not immediately become standard practice, they might begin to “creep into” such practice all the same, even if only in small degree at first.

It is exactly in these two aspects by which the boundary lines that define Ukrainian traditional music might be broadened, then, that I think it can be said the Patterned Songs project does indeed hold great promise for the future of Ukrainian traditional music.

And it's useful to point out along these lines, too, that what I think Karpenko is really doing here in proposing these potential “expansions” of traditional music is in a sense an attempt to enact on a more deliberated and conscious level pretty much what tends to occur “naturally” with traditional music cultures. In other words, it tends to be inevitably the case that a traditional music culture will find ways of expanding itself by taking on various discrete elements, and at times even entire songs, from “neighboring” musical cultures, as well as from other music making approaches, such as the “High Art” or “Commercial” domains.

This sort of process of course generally occurs only very gradually, which is to say quite slowly, taking place over a significant period of time. What Karpenko is therefore really doing I think is proposing a sort of “speeded-up”, as well as more thought-through version of this “natural” process.

And in this, she is very much in line with what I have identified in the same essay I quoted from above —“The Tradition”—as the core “structural basis and dynamic” underlying the Ukrainian “Avtentyka Revival Movement” as a whole.

That is, just as a “cadre” of “academically-trained, ethnomusicology-grounded scholar/performers” essentially took over or intervened as the primary “caretakers” of “the Tradition”, so as to ensure the very preservation of this music, what I think it can be said that Karpenko (who is herself as it happens an “academically-trained, ethnomusicology-grounded scholar/performer”) is doing is effectively “taking over” the “natural” process by which a traditional music culture experiences growth—albeit now in a more explicit and deliberative manner than was the case traditionally—precisely so as to ensure that it does in fact continue to grow.

Moreover, in that what she is doing is indeed enacted at such a high artistic level, it seems clear to me that again, the Patterned Songs project, if it is received by the larger Ukrainian musical community in the manner it deserves to be received, should in this way likewise bear great promise for the future of the Ukrainian music making world overall.

In any event, one way that I have found useful in trying to attain to a rich and complex perspective on the Ukrainian music making world overall is to compare the work of various artists from this world who would seem at first glance to be very disparate in character.

In fact, I already made some suggestive first steps along this path vis-a-vis Karpenko in my previous essay on her, in briefly comparing her work to that of Maryana Sadovska—certainly a very different sort of artist altogether—so it seems to me that it might be worthwhile to continue a bit more down this same thoroughfare.

In contradistinction to Karpenko, Sadovska is very obviously a “contemporary artist[...] whose primary commitment is to an ambitious, exacting experimentalism”, as I phrased it above. At the same time, Sadovska does operate, similiarly to Karpenko, very much by way of a deep engagement with Ukrainian traditional music.

Thus, it might be said that although Sadovska is in a sense working from outside the parameters of “the Tradition”—this would by definition be the case, I think, for any artist whose primary commitment is to experimentalism—her work at the same time makes use of Ukrainian traditional music to such an extent, and does so in a manner that involves such an intensely conscientious devotion to this music, that it can definitely be taken as an exemplary model of how to engage with Ukrainian traditional music from an experimental standpoint (and indeed, Sadovska was very much the pioneering figure in this line of endeavor).

And in this way, it would certainly be appropriate to take what Sadovska does as representing an enrichment, and thereby, a broadening of “the Tradition”, in her own manner.

What Sadovska does in her work is to create a sort of suggestive aura of as-of-yet unrealized expressive possibilities that may be seen, as it were surreptitiously residing within traditional music, that in fact can be extracted from this music by way of an experimental engagement with it. This again, is by definition enacted from outside the proper parameters of “the Tradition”.

What Karpenko is doing is in fact almost a reverse image of this, in that she is definitely working from within the parameters of “the Tradition”, operating for the most part on the same communicative terms as “the Tradition”—which is to say, utilizing primarily traditional techniques and approaches—yet doing so in a manner that likewise suggests an aura of possibilities by which “the Tradition” may be enriched, precisely by subtly interfusing these terms with certain experimental aspects, such as were just discussed above.

Thus, while Sadovska's work can be seen as representing a hypothetical or potential broadening of “the Tradition”—at least, in terms of a currently existing overall sense or understanding of it—from outside its boundary lines, Karpenko's work can be seen as representing a hypothetical or potential broadening of “the Tradition” from its inside.

It's important to grasp once more, though, that neither of these constructed “auras of possibilities” are likely to be immediately accepted or assimilated by “the Tradition”, which is after all by its very nature conservative. What these “constructions” are capable of achieving—in so far as they are enacted in such an aesthetically cogent and powerfully way as is the case with both of these extraordinary artists—is instead something again, like a standing reserve which may be “drawn from” bit by bit by way of a process which, even though it might be “speeded-up” in relation to that process which obtains “naturally”, still does move fairly slowly.

Yet, because they are put forward from within the parameters of “the Tradition”, it's probably safe to say that the experimental aspects “proposed” in the approach taken by Karpenko have a more ready chance of being accepted and assimilated sooner rather than later by “the Tradition”, and in this way, might even be seen as engaged in the task of “broadening the boundary lines of the Tradition” in a much more immediately purposeful manner than Sadovska's “avant gardist”-oriented art.

On the other hand, it is precisely because the “aura of possibilities” created by an (indubitably substantive) “avant gardist” such as Sadovska does exist so emphatically outside the parameters of “the Tradition”, even while at the same time engaging with that Tradition in such a passionate way, that its manner of expression can seem so intense and riveting.

At the same time, it is I think an absolute testament to how aesthetically substantive and intelligently focused Susanna Karpenko's work is that even though it does communicate largely in a traditional manner, using traditional techniques and approaches to a preponderant degree—however leavened with experimentalist infusions—her manner of expression is as compelling in its own mode of subtle expansionism as is Sadovska's more extensive and elaborated manner.

This, at any rate, completes the core body of my conceptual analysis of Karpenko's Patterned Songs project. What I aim to do in the remainder of this essay is firstly, to consider the two selected songs that are embedded above in light of this conceptual analysis—taking note of the various ways in which these two performances concretely instantiate many of the aspects that I just discussed in more abstract terms—and secondly, to finish up with a tentative videography of the Patterned Songs project.

And what I want to start with is actually a consideration of some of the performers present in these two videos who, in addition to Karpenko, make these two performances so extraordinary.

As I already mentioned above, the two musicians that Karpenko has (very intelligently) chosen more than any others to take part in her project are wind instrument prodigy Maksym Berezhniuk and violin virtuoso Serhiy Okhrimchuk. In some respects Berezhniuk is the more indispensible to the Patterned Songs project, in that he has in fact been present in all but a couple of performances, while Okhrimchuk has been present in a lesser, although still substantial number.

However, because I plan to discuss Berezhniuk's career more extensively elsewhere on this site—I have in fact selected two songs each on my “Best of the Best” list from both of the two excellent Rock groups Berezhniuk has led, Kamo Hrydeshi and the Doox—I want to focus first on Okhrimchuk, with a decent amount of extended discussion of his overall career here.

Indeed, even though he has not, as far as I know, led any groups of his own, Okhrimchuk nonetheless seems to me in some respects at least, quite possibly the central figure in the entire Ukrainian music making world of the last three or four decades.

I realize of course that there will likely be those who will take exception to such a designation, and will want to insist on some other figure—say, Oleh Skrypka for instance—as more deserving of it.

Given the importance of not only Skrypka's voluminous music-making over the course of well-nigh three decades now, beginning in the latter part of the 1980s, but also of what might be called his crucial institution building within the diverse territories of the Ukrainian music world—e.g., the whole series of endeavors that fall under the aegis of Kraina Mriy, among other things—this would certainly have to be acknowledged as a reasonable assertion.

Yet, even given as long as Skrypka has been an emphatically conspicuous figure in and around the music making scene in Ukraine, Serhiy Okhrimchuk has in point of fact been an active presence in this arena even longer.

Okhrimchuk was in fact an early member of Drevo (Kyiv)—what for all intents and purposes stands as the first professionally active traditional music “avtentyka ensemble” in Ukraine

And since that time, he has taken part in so many groups, projects, ventures—as either a regular member or else as an occasional “sideman”—that it would take a significantly-long list to specify them all. I am going to nonetheless attempt to do just that right now, to the best of my ability per the research I have done over many months, although I have no doubt I will be inadvertently leaving out one or two endeavors at the very least.

The list follows no absolutely consistent order, although I have tried to arrange things with some sense of either chronological priority, stylistic affiliation, or else in terms of Okhrimchuk's level of involvement and/or importance vis-a-vis his overall career trajectory. For what it's worth, I am providing a hyperlink for each entry that will connect to the best example I could find on YouTube, more or less, of Okhrimchuk's playing with said endeavor. I am also providing a very brief description of the style of music at hand, so as to give a comprehensive sense of the man's extraordinary stylistic breadth, developed as a working musician in Ukraine for what amounts to well-nigh four decades, if not longer. Here goes:


The aforementioned Drevo—again, the pioneering Ukrainian “avtentyka ensemble”;

Khoreya Kozatska, a highly visible “Restorationist” project led by Taras Kompanichenko, focused on Ukrainian musical traditions from the late Medieval and Renaissance period, as well as from somewhat more recent eras (Mykhailo Kachelov, a very frequent musical partner of Okhrimchuk's, is also in this group);

Another, seemingly rather less-visible “Restorationist” project that goes by the name Zoloti Vorota (Maksym Berezhniuk is also involved in this, as is Anzhela Zaytseva, another frequent musical partner of Okhrimchuk's);

Still another ensemble along these lines—Novna Radist (New Joy)—this one led by composer/multi-instrumentalist Danylo Perstov, and mixing a “Restorationist” approach to Ancient/Early Modern and other Traditional Ukrainian music with occasional forays into experimentalist Avant Garde electronics-based music (It's worth noting that Okhrimchuk also performed as a chorist in the 2016 premiere of Pertsov's impressive Ukrainian Traditional music-leavened Classical oratorio, “Bitter Star”, which brought together a significant number of Ukraine's most-accomplished musical figures to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster).

And one more: Sarmatica, a “Restorationist” project, formed by Russian-American musician and scholar Oleg Timofeyev in conjunction with Danylo Pertsov, that takes a particularly scholarly approach to a similar array of Ancient/Early Modern music. This includes Okhrimchuk, Taras Kompanichenko and Mykhailo Kachelov.

Three different traditional music ensembles who as far as I can tell are at best only sporadically active at the present moment: Polikarp, Nadobryden, and Varion;

An all-strings (mostly from the violin family) ensemble that is either called the Bows Band or else, possibly Kyivan Torts [?] (Olena Yeremenko from the great Lviv-based band Burdon performs with this outfit at times);

Susanna Karpenko's Patterned Songs Project—obviously, but worth taking note of once more;

Alla Zagaykevych's very expressly Avant Garde project Electroacoustic's Ensemble that provocatively brings together highly abstruse electronic music with the most earthy “avtentyka” Ukrainian traditional music (this has also included Hurtopravtsi founder Iryna Klymenko);

Katya Chilly, a rather New Age-inflected solo Pop artist;

“The World's Greatest Street Band”, Ukraine's own TopOrkestra, whose rampantly Carnivalesque approach to music making encompasses just about every style there is that is worth playing (Kachelov and Zaytseva have both been part of this collective, as has Pushkin Klezmer Band's Mitya Gerasimov, and many others);

Mashala Doza, a very worthwhile Ukrainian “all-star” project that specializes in an interlinked line of Greek-Balkan-Turkish traditional musical styles (Olga Prudey from Cloud Jam has been involved with this, as has Kachelov and Zaytseva);

Cloud Jam, an interesting group led by the first-rate vocalist Olga Prudey that mixes together approaches from Ukrainian and other traditional musics, as well as contemporary popular music, with various strains of meditative-oriented World Music, particularly those associated with the Indian subcontinent;

Dychka, an exceedingly eccentric and idiosyncratic, and without doubt quite talented group;

Babuci and Brothers, a group that plays music much along the same lines as TopOrkestra, with an especial focus it would seem on Gypsy musical culture;

Pushkin Klezmer Band, led by first-rate clarinetist Mitya Gerasimov, that plays, well...Klezmer;

A very interesting endeavor with Red Cardell, an important “Roots Rock” band from the Brittany region of France, that mixes up the traditional Breton Celtic music of their native land with all manner of Rock-oriented and World Music strains; this was a project that Okhrimchuk did in conjunction with the seminal Ukrainian “avtentyka ensemble” Hurtopravtsi;

A (surprisingly well done, to my ears) project led by French-based, Ukrainian-born Jazz pianist Dimitri Naiditch, entitled “Jazz Meets Ukrainian Folk Music” (this also included Susanna Karpenko, among others);

A very Fusion-y sort of project called French Connection;

A rather standard issue-sounding Prog Fusion outfit called Supremus;

Victor Solomin Quartet, a very Fusion-y sort of band eponymously led by domra virtuoso Victor Solomin;

A Prog Rock outfit led by Nik Oakman—a musician who apparently played with Allan Holdsworth at some point—which for some strange reason happens to be named Oakman;

NoveMore, a project put forward by the copiously-talented Danyleiko family, featuring music written mostly in the 1960s by their father (or father-in-law, in both Iryna and Ivanna Danyleiko's case).

I even stumbled across an event held in 2015 that Okhrimchuk took part in, along with fellow violinist Anzhela Zaytseva, in which a large conglomeration of, I would presume, mostly orchestral musicians, referring to themselves as the Ukrainian Improvisers Orchestra, perform the seminal (and primarily improvised) Minimalist composition In C by the legendary American composer Terry Riley;

And last but by no means least, Oleh Skrypka himself—a man who, among his many other talents, would seem to possess an impeccable ear for musical excellence—has frequently called upon Mr. Okhrimchuk's talents, both in his various forays within the traditional music sphere, as well as for his Le Grand Orchestra productions and other solo endeavors (Susanna Karpenko and Iryna Danyleiko are two other first-rate musicians Skrypka frequently calls upon).

So there it is: Ukrainian and many other varieties of Traditional Music, Medieval and Renaissance music, Standard Classical, Avant Garde Classical, Prog Rock, Roots Rock, Jazz, Pop Music, New Age, Klezmer, Rebetika, Balkan, Gypsy—again, I am no doubt leaving out one or more styles in the man's toolbox, but this at least gives a decent sense of this outstanding musician's phenomenal breadth.

And considering all the different musicians he's played with, in addition to, or rather in conjunction with all the diverse styles he's played, it doesn't seem too much to conclude I think, that Okhrimchuk's career has in a sense served as the veritable common connecting thread linking together nearly the whole of the Ukrainian music making world over the last number of decades—or at least much of its most worthwhile segments, usually by not more than a single degree of separation: Follow this one thread, that is to say, and you will find yourself becoming acquainted with a significant part of what has been most valuable in the Ukrainian music world in recent decades.

Thus, positing Okhrimchuk as the central figure in Ukrainian music in the contemporary era makes sense along these lines if we think of centrality in terms of mutual interconnection—i.e., in the sense of a network—the common hub which a great many spokes link up to.

And it seems to me not at all inappropriate, too, to relate within the context of this article this manner of overarching “lifetime” or “career-summarizing” consideration of all the things the man has undertaken in the span of his musical life: For, after having listened carefully to at least the lion's share of what Okhrimchuk has done throughout his career, I believe that the two solo improvisations in the videos embedded above are without much question two of his best ever. In fact, I would venture that his utterly stunning solo in “Sidit Zayets Na Verbi” may well be the best single solo he has ever performed.

Moreover, what to my mind Okhrimchuk excels at as a soloist most of all—thematic development—happens to be on display in these two solos to a very concentrated degree. The man clearly possesses abundant technical facility on his instrument—it's worth noting that one of the foundations Okhrimchuk set down at the beginning of his career was a classical education—yet what most impresses me about his soloing is his talent for issuing forth what seems a near-ceaselessly unfurling skein of thematic development that hardly ever fails to dazzle in its continuous capacity for invention and surprise.

Next up for consideration would have to be Maksym Berezhniuk. As already mentioned, Berezhniuk can be seen in many ways as all but indispensable to the Patterned Songs project. While he does without question make an important contribution to the project as a vocalist, his “indispensability” here is most of all a function, I think, of what he is able to “bring to the table” as an instrumentalist. Succinctly put, the man is not only in possession of, but is actually proficient on over a hundred musical instruments.

As far as I am aware, this instrumental assemblage is exclusively of the wind variety, with the one exception of the drymba—the Ukrainian term for the “jaw harp”—which although it in fact uses the mouth as a resonating cavity, is actually a percussion rather than a wind instrument.

Yet, if it can be said that every musical instrument to one degree or another represents its own little compact, encapsulated musical culture, then what Berezhniuk is able to “bring to the table” is indeed something quite considerable—not only an immense variety of timbres, of color and texture and resonance, but what amounts to a whole dense, complex universe of cultural depth and evocation.

And even though he has often enough proven himself to be an excellent soloist, what it seems to me he is most accomplished at rather is constructing what might be referred to as soundscapes: a sort of focused, intent unfolding of as many of the potentialities—of precisely the colors, textures, and distinct resonances—inherent in a particular instrument as best serves a piece of music's qualitative enactment.

And all such capabilities are to be sure on distinct display in good measure in the two pieces I will be examining below.

Also worthy of some consideration here is Mykhailo Kachelov, who it seems fair to say can be asserted without much controversy as Ukraine's premier fiddler. The fiddle—at least this is the case vis-a-vis the instrument that Kachelov plays—is by no means simply a lower-cost variety of violin, with perhaps some relatively minor differences in construction (this is pretty much what the term fiddle denotes in North American musical contexts, I believe). Kachelov's instrument actually looks quite a bit different, for starters: Its headstock is especially unlike that of the standard violin, replacing the sort of narrow, elegant scroll typical of most violins with a much wider, thinner, and flatter apparatus.

And instead of the four strings customary for the violin, Kachelov's fiddle bears five strings, with the additional string situated I am presuming in the bass, as the pitch range of Kachelov's fiddle would seem to be definitely lower than that of the standard violin.

In conjunction with this fact, then, Kachelov not infrequently employs a somewhat different approach to playing the instrument, too: As I will point out in the “close reading” below, he quite often takes what for all intents and purposes represent a bass part, not only positioned on the lower end of the pitch spectrum, but also making use of ostinato-type passages that undergird the musical texture overall, supporting the vocals and (usually higher-pitched) other instruments that ride on top of it.

This no doubt supplies one of the reasons Kachelov is so much in demand in the Ukrainian music making world—he would appear to be one of the most active musicians in this world, participating in an extraordinary variety of projects. Yet the other, perhaps even more decisive reason, is that Kachelov stands in many ways I think as the quintessential ensemble player, as the ensemble player par excellence in Ukrainian music, conferring unto every musical situation he takes part in an imperturbable reliability and substantiveness, furnishing at all times the absolutely requisite part in an astoundingly diverse array of musical styles.

The only other musician in the two videos at hand who I am at all familiar with is Yaryna Dron, the young woman standing to the left of Serhiy Ohrimchuk who is the second violinist in the group gathered here. She is a member of the traditional music “avtentyka ensemble” Roksolaniya, and also plays instrumental music in a group called the U.S. Orchestra, which draw their repertoire from recordings made in the early 20th century by Ukrainian immigrants to the United States.

The other two musicians featured I have no familiarity with whatsoever, although I would note that both certainly perform in quite able fashion here: Roman Zakharchenko, who plays a bass drum strapped to his chest (apparently referred to as a “dzvony” in Ukrainian), and Mariya Samoilova, the woman in the red dress to Kachelov's left, who is listed as playing an “alt”, which is evidently what Ukrainians call the viola, a bowed, four-course stringed instrument that at first glance does not seem all that much distinguishable from the violin, although it is in fact slightly larger in size, and is tuned slightly lower in pitch.

This instrumentation lineup itself deserves some notice, too, I think: I remarked above on the fact that the different performances that have been gathered together under the name of the Patterned Songs project has involved a great deal of variation, perhaps most of all in terms of its personell and instrumentation. The lineup featured in the two 2016 Ivan Honchar musuem performances that are under discussion here is in my estimation the most impressive one that the project has thus far put forward.

Although in some respects the “minimalist” lineup on hand for the performance that was given in Lviv at the Les Kurbas Theatre back in 2013—just Karpenko along with Berezhniuk on wind instruments and Okhrimchuk on violin—I find to be itself almost majestic at times for its sheer, austere starkness (especially as the performance resounds dramatically within the fine acoustic environment of this particular theatre), ultimately it is the lineup in these two Ivan Honchar Museum performances whose aesthetic qualities stands out the most.

That is to say, there is I believe a result of this particular instrumentation a very fine balance within a larger context of sonic density that is attained here in the music's texture that seems especially noteworthy, for reasons I made some allusion to just above:

Hence, there is first of all a “lower end” laid down not only by Mr. Kachelov's fiddle, but also by the bass drum played by Mr. Zakharchenko, then the three “voices” from the violin family establishes a sort of “mid-ground” (and each of these three “voices” often take in these two pieces what sounds like slightly different parts, playing off one another and also with the fiddle part, although I will examine these matters in more detail below). And on top of this, then, rests the primary melody line taken at various points by both Mr. Berezhniuk on winds, and Ms. Karpenko on the vocal. To add further to the sonic density, Karpenko in the first piece adds into the mix an additional percussion instrument, the tambourine-like bubon—this is played with a stick, however, rather than shaken—which is situated at a somewhat higher pitch level than the bass. And the second piece moreover begins with the very nice touch of someone ringing a bell off-screen, and then really gets into full gear with Berezhniuk imparting a pulsating percussive rhythm from the drymba.

To provide a complex account of this complex musical texture as it is constitued in these two pieces, though, what is needed is what I referred to above as a “close reading”. What I mean by this phrase is really just this—a step-by-step examination of these two performancea by paying as close attention as possible to as many details as possible as the two performances each unfurl themselves in time (I will also take at least some note of various broader sociocultural resonances and ramifications surrounding the “text” at hand, albeit in small measure only). It is thus this task that I take up now.

I will start with the first performance embedded above: “Yavrumla Salgirnin Boyu”.

According to the video for Karpenko's 2013 Les Kurbas show that was noted above, this happens to be a Crimean Tatar song, although perhaps it also exists under some another title, as I was not able to find any other performances besides for this one on YouTube. Whatever the case, the song definitely has what might be considered a certain “exotic” feel—from the “normative” standpoint of standard European music, that is—and I will try to point out some of these aspects in my examination below.

It's definitely worth taking note, though, that this “exotic” feel is not by any means overly emphasized in this performance—certainly not in any sensationalistic manner. Rather, what I think the approach adopted here manifests is much the opposite: In other words, the approach here would seem to be working for the most part to effectively assimilate the song, at least in a propositional manner, into the broader environs of Ukrainian musical culture (although it at the same time does so, I think, in a manner which maintains respect for the unique qualities of the musical culture from which it stems).

And this again, very much is a manifestation of the overall approach that, as I delineated it above, it seems to me Karpenko has adopted for this project—the approach which indeed supplies the title for this essay: It is through such means, that is to say, that the project is as it were proposing ways by which the boundary lines of traditional Ukrainian musical culture might be broadened.

Moreover, given that the Crimean Tatar community have not only been de facto members of the broader Ukrainian community at least since the onset of Independence over a quarter century ago, but have become more and more assimilated into the everyday textures of national life in Ukraine since the advent of the Russian assault on the nation in 2014—an assault which of course began with the anschluss of the Crimean Tatar homeland—this whole approach is very much in tune with the general tendencies that the Ukrainian nation has been pursuing throughout these past years.

At any rate, what kicks this performance off is Maksym Berezhniuk enunciating the song's primary melodic theme on a large, long and wide woodwind instrument—an instrument with a pitch range that would seem to be decidedly lower than that of the more typical “flute-type” woodwind. I am not aware at this time of either the name or the provenance of this instrument, but it seems fair to say that it does possess somewhat of an “exotic” quality itself.

And the melodic line played on the instrument—rather appealingly serpentine in character—is likewise quite “exotic”, even more so in that it is cast in a 12-beat form that is not really typical of Western music. Compared again to the “normative” standard of most traditional European music—in which 2-, 3- or 4-beat time structures tend to predominate—this 12/8 time-signature does indeed possess for most Westerners I think, something like the feel of a marked departure from the ordinary, which is pretty much what defines at the most basic, immediate felt level, what the exotic amounts to as a category of experience.

The line however is in two parts, essentially a “statement-and-response” type line, in which the melodic contours of the first 12-beat line would seem to be then “responded to” or “answered” by a second 12-beat line, essentially by mirroring certain aspects, even while at the same time varying others. Thus, although it twists and turns a fair bit, the first line would seem to be mostly ascending in its pitch movement, while the descending pitch movement of its “response”, the second line, effectively reverses this.

In thus “responding” in this way, the second line thereby completes the first line as it were, in the process conferring on the two lines combined together a sense of a coherent unit. Hence, what we have here is in fact very much like a single coherent “statement” in a spoken or written alphabetical language, which is then marked off by any further “statements”—or “re-statements”—by way of some manner of punctuation. In the case of this musical instance, this “punctuation effect” is achieved by a pause in enunciation at the end of the second line (what in musical notation is referred to as a “rest”).

After this first full articulation of the theme on the woodwind alone, Mykahilo Kachelov on the fidlle then steps in at the beginning of the next 12-beat bar, supplying what as noted above, amounts more or less to a bass part. In doing so, he moreover would seem to be outlining a very basic chord progression...





TO BE CONTINUED...




ENDNOTES:



[CZX] Of course, the artist's own conscious thinking regarding “what she is up to” is not necessarily the absolute last word on the meaning and significance of an artistic work, but having some knowledge of her own thinking on the matter should give a sense of at least some of the initiating impetus behind the construction of the work, one of the definite sources in reference to which anyone considering what the work might amount to should pay their respects to.

[j]

[h] As superlative as the Lviv 2013 performance of “Viryazhala Mati Sina” is, that is to say, it features only Karpenko on vocals, along with Maksym Berezhniuk on duduk and Serhiy Okhrimchuk on violin; the 2016 Ivan Honchar performances, on the other hand, feature seven musicians in total, and thereby, a much broader swath of instrumentation: Karpenko on vocals as well as playing the bubon, the small, tambourine-like, Ukrainian hand drum; four musicians who play different versions of the violin family (including not only Okhrimchuk on violin proper, but also Ukraine's premier fiddle-player, Mykhailo Kachalov, who also provides vocals), plus Berezhniuk on woodwinds and vocals, and Roman Zakharchenko on bass drum.

[t] A more serious and thorough-going philological analysis would of course necessitate that I be more familiar with the language(s) at hand than I am; as things stand, I am obviously engaging in an awful lot of guesswork here as far as semantics and a number of other things. I acknowledge the limitations of this approach, for whatever it's worth.

[r] I don't mean to suggest, by the way, that Bozhychi is not focused on dynamism and growth in their version of traditional music— here and hereare two examples that constitute what I think are some of the most dynamic music making in the Ukrainian “Avtentyka Revival Movement” repertoire, for what it's worth—but rather that their primary, overriding focus would seem to be on the most rigorous rendering as possible of a “Preservationist” approach to traditional music.