Ukrainian folk group Zubrivka at the Toronto Ukrainian Festival

Here's the schedule for their festival performances:

Saturday, September 18 from 6:30 – 8:30 pm EDT
Sunday, September 19 from 3:30 – 4:00 pm EDT

Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival
2440 Bloor St. W
Toronto ON

This TV special about them is in Ukrainian but even if you don't understand the language, you'll understand the universal language of the music.

Enjoy!

Astounding talent - virtuoso violinist Vasyl Popadiuk

If you are anywhere near Toronto this coming weekend, do not miss the chance to see this amazing musician perform live.

I have a couple of his CDs... which get a fair bit of airplay on Nash Holos. They are incredible enough as it is, but no comparison to seeing him on stage. So if you haen't yet, you can only imagine!

The first time I saw him was back in 1993, in Vancouver's Centennial Theatre. At the time he was with the Hopak Ukrainian Folk Dance Company of Ukraine. The troupe disbanded shortly thereafter, presumably due to a good number of members falling in love with Canada and deciding to stay.

However, the show was, in a word, spectacular. One of the acts was this young man sawing away on a violin ... and the way the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, I just knew that wouldn't be last I'd see or hear of him.

He settled in Toronto, where he developed a cabaret act calling himself Papa Duke. I'm told he has since recently relocated to Ottawa.
An earlier post I did on him just ahead of his concert in Hamilton last year featured a few videos of him performing.

Here's another one:

Mad Heads - Toronto Ukrainian Festival headliner act

My first exposure to this fabulous video and song was in Crystal Lake, Saskatchewan, at the Adult Ukrainian Language Immersion Camp my sister and I attended a few years back.

Presumably Mad Heads will be performing it at the Toronto Ukrainian Festival this coming weekend.

If you can't make it to the festival to see Mad Heads perform live, or you just love hearing the song and watching the video, here you go.

Enjoy!

See Dunai at the Toronto Ukrainian Festival

Here's a sneak peek of what Dunai may have in store for you this coming weekend at the Toronto Ukrainian Festival.

They're playing a traditional Ukrainian folksong, Yikhaly Kozaky (Їхали Козаки), actually quite a gruesome and tragic tale played in a very upbeat polka style ... which is the norm for this song btw.

Well, who said Ukrainians don't have a sense of humour? OK it can be somewhat twisted at times but, what they hey. If you can't laugh what's the point of being alive?

For the Ukrainian-impaired, they give the plotline in English before they start playing.

Enjoy!

Nash Holos podcast and audio archives updated for this week

For those who didn't catch the program when it aired on Sunday, visit the Nash Holos website for the podcast!

Here's what's on:

• Meylakh Sheyket, of the Jewish Heritage Museum in Lviv, Ukraine, talks about he month of Elul on the Jewish calendar, and how it is observed by the Jewish community in Ukraine.
• Vasyl Pawlowsky presents another Kultural Capsule on the Montreal Ukrainian Festival which took place last weekend.
• Irena Bell, of the Ukrainian Hour Radio Program in Ottawa, profiles Martha Bielish, the first female Ukrainian Canadian senator

This week's music mix features several acts who will be performing at the Toronto Ukrainian Festival this coming weekend, including psychobilly band Mad Heads XL from Ukraine, folk group Zubrivka from Toronto, virtuoso violisnist Vasyl Popadiuk of Ottawa, and folk rock band Dunai from Ajax, Ontario

I'll be posting a few videos of these acts that I particularly like. Here's one by Mad Heads.

Enjoy!

Lord of War - fact-based fiction comes to life

A few weeks back my DH and I watched Lord of War.

If I'd had my way, we wouldn't have. But I'm glad we did.

It starts out a bit slow, and being chronically short on patience, I was ready to ditch it after a few minutes. My DH insisted I give it a chance so, just to get along, I did. Good thing, too. What a powerful movie!

Based (loosely) on real life characters, it's a real indictment of the arms trade. The acting is great. (It stars Nicholas Cage, after all!) And the story is gripping. So I found it a very memorable movie.

Nonetheless, I had immediate doubts about the accuracy of the Ukrainian references.

The protagonist is based on notorious gun-runner Viktor Bout. Nothwithstanding that the movie is of course fictional, to my mind it's nonetheless highly unlikely that a Ukrainian from the Crimea who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s or 80s would self-identify as a patriotic Ukrainian ... and at that, one who was ecstatic about what happened in 1991. (In real life, the Crimea is dominated by Russians hell-bent on returning the area to Mother Russia.)

It's also doubtful that a senior officer in the Soviet army who, after the Soviet Union collapsed, would later have access to stockpiled arms, would have been a patriotic ethnic Ukrainian ... especially since, according to Wikipedia, the uncle’s character is based on a real-life person, Oleg Orlov, who died in a Kyiv prison in 2007 while under investigation for smuggling arms to Iran.

I suppose these fictitious stretches make for a good story. But I dunno. I think it would have been a better story had it been closer to reality. Would you agree?

In a real-life twist, shortly after I saw the movie, a friend who is an expert on Ukrainian politics and current affairs, sent an email saying that Viktor Bout was being extradited to the USA. As an arms supplier to terrorists including Al Qaida, he may be implicated in 9/11.

There is some scuttlebutt that a deputy in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada (parliament) ,Yuriy Bout, may be his brother. Yurij became a deputy after switching citizenship from Russian to Ukrainian and receiving his Ukrainian passport on the day before Gen. Yurij Kravchenko's two-bullets-to-the-head "suicide."

There's not a lot of information about Yurij Bout that I could find, at least not in English. As for Viktor Bout, given his arrest there will likely be follow up stories in the mainstream media similar to this and this and this.

In the meantime, despite the less-than-credible Ukrainian characterizations, I think it's still a movie worth watching (or watching again).

If you've seen it, I'd love to get your take on it.

If you haven't yet seen it, you can get the DVD at Amazon.

Here's the movie trailer.

Sorochinsky Fair

Great article in the Kyiv Post about Ukraine's famous Sorochinsky Fair, which took place this year Aug. 17-22.

Except for a period during the regressive and repressive soviet era, this historic open-air market has been around a long time. Ukrainian writer Nicolai Gogal (properly translitered as Hohol from Ukrainian) wrote a short story about it, and Mussorgsky composed an opera about it. With over 700,000 visitors, it is as popular today as it ever was.

Villagers and gawkers from all over Ukraine flock to this annual five-day feast for theater plays and insane shopping.

Back in the 19th century, this fair was no different from others. It owes its popularity to writer Nikolai Gogol, who was born in Velyki Sorochintsy, the same village where the fair is held. In his novel, he described all the action of wheeling and dealing, which, to be honest, hasn’t changed much. The fair is still a mess: rows of piglets mix with buckets of ostrich feathers.

But for many, this eclectic mix of disorganized village produce is the main attraction. Presidents and parliament deputies make it a must stop to mingle with simple folk and buy Ukrainian souvenirs.

The fair is only a three-hour drive from Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

Details of the fair (including highlights of previous years' fairs) are available at the fair's website here.

Vasyl did a charming feature on the fair on his Kultural Capsule on the August 29 broadcast of Nash Holos.  You can listen to it here.

Enjoy!

Ukraine's Eurovision near-wins

On last Sunday's radio program (international edition) I played Ukraine's 2007 and 2008 entries. The latter was a request from a new listener in Japan, and I thought it would be fun to play them back to back. Both years, Ukraine came second in the Eurovision contest.

There was a very lively discussion on this blog back in 2008 about these artists and the direction Ukrainian music has been taking. You can check it out here, but in the meantime, here's the wild and crazy 2007 entry.

Cheremshyna - Ukrainian Canadian trio from Montreal

On the August 22 show, Vasyl did a Kultural Capsule feature on Cheremshyna, a female vocal trio from Montreal.

These gals have been on the Ukrainian Canadian music scene for several decades, and while they've slowed down a bit on the recording side of things, they're still making the rounds of local festivals and events.

Cheremshyna became very well known in the days before the internet and social media, when networking was done face to face ... and maybe over the phone with a little help from the Ukrainian BBC, i.e., Баба Бабі Сказала (Granny told Granny).

Of course musical excellence may have also played a contributing role in their popularity!

In the 1980s and 90s they released several albums ... Volumes 1, 2 and 3 on vinyl (and cassette) and then on CD The Best of Cheremshyna and По Стежках Мрії (Along Paths of a Dream). They also released a wonderful Ukrainian Christmas album back in the 80s with a bunch of other local performers. It originally came out on vinyl and is currently available on CD at Yevshan, along with their "Best of" CD.

Unfortunately, Cheremshyna doesn't have a website, but I did manage to find this YouTube video someone put together online. It's a slideshow with one of their recordings in the background...Ой там за лісочком (Oy tam za lisochkom) which means "there beyond the woods."

Enjoy!

Nash Holos audio archives updated to August 29, 2010

Many thanks for your patience during this crazy hectic summer of moving and travelling. Now that fall is around the corner, it's feeling less like I'm on vacation in some resort! The weather has turned, and the rain and fog seem to have a way of bringing us Lotuslanders back down to earth. Sigh. Summers really aren't long enough.

But, that's ok. I have lots to do indoors! In addition to the ongoing upacking (where was all that stuff hiding??) I'm working on some programing and operational changes here at Nash Holos. They will hopefully be evident in the not too distant future.

In the meantime, you can find audio archives and playlists for the past four week's programs on the Playlist page at the Nash Holos website as well as updated events listings on the Features page.

Enjoy!

Zakuska Polka

Stompin' Tom Conners' ode to the Ukrainian Canadian community was featured on Nash Holos last Sunday, July 25. It was performed by the Kubasonics... and the song followed a rather accurate if brief re-enactment of an after-dinner scenario at a traditional Ukrainian hall gathering.

For the Ukrainian-impaired, here are some translations so you can know what you are saying as you sing along:

Samahonka = home brew
Kubasa = garlic sausage
Perogy = pierogi, pyrohy, stuffed dumpling, button
Borsch = beet soup
Polka = very energetic traditional dance
Zakuska = appetizer

Here are the lyrics to Zakuska Polka :

Upupupup, Papa, upupupup!
Come up and dance Mama,upupupup!
Samahonka! Put some in cup!
Upupupup,upupupup!
Upupupup,upupupup!

Come up and dance, and when you wish,
You could eat one, pickled fish!
Maybe cabbage roll, perogy, kubasa,
Maybe bowl of borsch, and polka!

Zakuska polka, she's very fine,
Sometime we dance, sometime we dine.
Sometime we drink, eep! Too much wine!
But, Zakuska's good anytime!

Upupupup, Papa, upupupup!
Come up and dance Mama,upupupup!
Samahonka! Put some in cup!
Upupupup,upupupup!
Upupupup,upupupup!

Come up and dance, and when you wish,
You could eat one, pickled fish!
Maybe cabbage roll, perogy, kubasa,
Maybe bowl of borsch, and polka!

Zakuska polka, she's very fine,
Sometime we dance, sometime we dine.
Sometime we drink, eep! Too much wine!
But, Zakuska's good anytime!

Upupupup, Papa, upupupup!
Come up and dance Mama,upupupup!
Samahonka! Put some in cup!
Upupupup,upupupup!
Upupupup,upupupup!

Zakuska!

Nash Holos audio archives updated to July 25, 2010

Program podcast and other updates now available at the Nash Holos website.

This week's Cultural Capsule with Vasyl Pawlowksy features Canada's National Ukrainian Festival. Irena Bell's Did You Know is about the largest country in Europe. Father Ihor Kutash will be returning, and I'm working on something new and very different to air in rotation with him.

Our recipe was an encore presentation of Judy's cousin's apple cake which was featured last summer (here). Although Judy has left us to concentrate on her expansion plans for Prairie Cottage Perogies, I'm re-running some of her more colourful presentations for the benefit of any new listeners who may have missed the original broadcast, particularly listeners of the International Editions airing on the PCJMedia network. I'm in discussions with a couple of potential replacements. Will keep you posted.

Stay tuned for details of all these changes as they come available.

In the meantime, check out the archives and enjoy an hour of fun, Ukrainian style, on Nash Holos Ukrainian Roots Radio!