BANDURA - DOWNTOWN
Julian Kytasty
is an Ukrainian-American composer, singer, kobzar, bandurist
and flute player. He was born in 1958 in Detroit, Michigan, in
the family of refugees.
His first studies
were in the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, in which his father,
uncles and grandfather played before him. He has been a resident
of New York since 1980. He moved there to found the New York
Bandura Ensemble (which also at various times included minimalist
composer-bandurist Michael Andrec, composer-lutenist Roman Turovsky-Savchuk,
Natalia Honcharenko and Juri Fedynsky), and began a career as
a solo artist and bandura teacher that has taken him all over
the world, from the Inuit lands to Patagonia. In 1989 he was
invited to tour Ukraine, performing over a hundred concerts as
a soloist as well as with a bandura trio.
Julian Kytasty
holds a Masters degree in music (Theory and Composition) from
Concordia University in Montreal (his undergraduate studies were
in military history). He is the author of original compositions
and arrangements that have entered the standard repertoire of
bandurists around the world.
He has also
created avant-garde music for instrumental groups, choirs, and
incidental music for dance and theatrical performances, notably
for New York's Yara Arts Group. Julian is a frequent speaker
on the bandura and its tradition.
He has been
a guest lecturer at many universities including Yale, Harvard,
Wesleyan, and the University of California.
Julian has
recorded for London's November Music label: Black Sea Winds -
Music of the Kobzari of Ukraine. He also has collaborated with
Canadian singer Alexis Kochan and their ensemble Paris to Kyiv
on two CDs, Chinese pipa player Wu Man, Mariana Sadovska, Brave
Old World and has recorded with his own group The Experimental
Bandura Trio.