Music

The Living Museum of Accordions in Zhashkiv

The town of Zhashkiv is home to one of the biggest collections of accordions in Ukraine. Ivan Sukhyi works on the second floor of the town’s music school: since 1991, he has been leading the children’s accordion ensemble, which has...

GogolTrain. The first legal art train

The great multi-disciplined festival of modern art StartUp GogolFest has taken place since 2018 in Mariupol, where each spring hundreds of people from all over Ukraine go. For that purpose, Bogdan Yaremchuk and Denys Uhorchuk created an art train, which...

Ukrainian Guitars for the World Market

These guitars compete in the global market alongside Fender and Gibson. They cost as much as handmade jewellery, and represent Ukraine at international music trade shows. And they originate from a small workshop in Bila Tserkva, Kyiv region. It all...

Buhai: a Bird and a Musical Instrument

There are a lot of folk musical instruments that have been forgotten over time, or their origin is hard to establish. If no one produces or restores them, they can simply disappear. Among such rare folk instruments is buhai, which...

Kosmach. Cymbals for the son

It’s hard to imagine the Ukrainian native music without cymbals. It’s an ancient stringed instrument was an inalienable attribute of weddings and other celebrating events, folk ensembles always had a cymbalist in its composition. Nowadays hardly anyone can teach play...

Hordii Starukh. 300 Lyres

Lyre art was once widespread in Ukraine, from the 16th century to the 1930s when Soviet officials ordered to “clean up” cities and villages of Ukrainian musicians. History contains allegations of Soviet officials organizing a conference for 300 Ukrainian Kobzars,...

Fedynskyj Music Workshop in Kriachkivka

Jurij Fedynskyj is an amazing character, one of those who frequently become heroes of films in the style of “Americans emigrate to Ukraine.” In fact, he is not an American at all, and he did not emigrate anywhere, but just...