But I wasn't taught to speak Ukrainian we spoke English in the home.вЂќД®ventually she became intrigued by this other language, this other culture, and started documenting it. My mother comes from a homesteading family in Saskatchewan, so when we would visit the Saskatchewan people we'd get together and sing. 'So people sang around me, especially on my mother's side. 'I grew up in Winnipeg, and I'm third-generation Ukrainian-Canadian,' she explains. As she explains it, music surrounded her as a child, but it was only once she became an adult that she recognized its true value. The disc is sweet and fierce, deeply moving and eminently danceable, passionate and smart, and that it is all these things is no doubt a tribute to its founder and leader, Beverly Dobrinsky.ДЄ UBC music-department graduate and Kodaly teacher, Dobrinsky could easily have pursued a career in opera or art song but has instead spent the past two decades researching her Ukrainian heritage-and, especially, its musical component. All over the world, young musicians are looking for ways to combine their grandparents' culture with modern forms of expression, and Willow Bridge is as accomplished a back-to-the-future move as anything that's come out of such cultural hotbeds as Scandinavia, Ball, or Brazil. James Hall on Saturday (November 27)-started out as an all-female vocal group but has since morphed into a coed ensemble that incorporates accordion, violin, upright bass, and percussion, in addition to some very accomplished singing. Zeellia-which hosts a CD-release party at St. Appetizing though it is, however, it's not entirely indicative of the banquet that follows. It's a traditional Ukrainian song of welcome that might be sung at a wedding feast or harvest-time party it signifies that the table has been set and the wine has been poured, and it makes a perfect opener for Willow Bridge, the new CD from local Ukrainian-music specialists Zeellia. 'Zelene Zhytto', the title of the piece in question, translates as 'Green Rye'. Although the words are foreign to these ears, it's obviously a song of celebration, and of community it rises up like green shoots in the spring, yet it speaks also of the plenty to come. ItвЂ™s a sound thatвЂ™s as old as the fields and as wild as the forest a womanвЂ™s voice, raised in exultation, answered by a chorus of similar voices. DobrinskyвЂ™s approach to the instruВment both nods towards its traditional role as accompaniment to spiritual minstrel songs and reframes it in a new light. Among other instruments, the album features the hurdy-gurdy, known as lira in Ukraine. As I Walk across Canada is a gorgeously mournful song steeped in loneВliness and nostalgia for the homeland left behind. DobrinskyвЂ™s recomposition of the tune is a highly effective combination of playful rhythms and dissonant a cappella vocal harmonies punctuated by woodВblock knocks. In my own explorations of Ukrainian folk music, I have found that domestic abuse is, unfortunately, a common theme and I commend Zeellia for not shying away from it. The most striking track is Oy byv mene cholovik (My Husband Beat Me). With her mixture of vocal and instruВmental textures, Dobrinsky takes great liberВties with the found materials pushing them into the realm of original compositions rather than mere arrangements. ZeelliaвЂ™s approach to these traditional songs lives firmly in the realm of artistic re-interpretaВtion, rather than an ethnographic recreation. Containing snippets of interВviews and songs from elderly migrants, which the ensemble founder Beverly Dobrinsky collected in Alberta and Saskatchewan in the 90s, the CD is both a historical docuВment and an artistic statement. With its mix of field recordings and original arrangeВments and composВitions, ZeelliaвЂ™s new album Tse Tak Bulo/ ThatвЂ™s How It Was explores pre-Soviet Ukrainian migraВtion to Canada.

Exodus quartet summer soulstice