St. Vladimir Institute Virtual Malanka 2021
January 15, 2021 – 7:00 – 8:00 pm ET
Buy tickets on EventBrite or at executivedirector@stvladimir.ca
SVI MALANKA is going virtual! Join the SVI Family ONLINE for fellowship, tradition, music and a charcuterie grazing box on January 15, 2021.
Members and non-members welcome.
$125 per member / $150 non-member includes a charcuterie grazing box and entertainment. Tax receipt for a portion of the ticket price included.
Register before January 10, 5 p.m. ET to reserve your place at the SVI virtual Malanka table.
GTHA only for charcuterie boxes. Guests from beyond the GTHA receive a tax receipt for a larger portion of their ticket price.
Note that the facility that prepares the charcuterie boxes is not nut-free. If you have any other dietary restrictions, please send an email to halyna@chepesiuk.ca
Once registered, please watch your email for information on obtaining your charcuterie box.
Deliveries are restricted to the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area.
The Malanka Zoom link will be provided prior to the event.
Master of Ceremonies – Marta Czurylowicz of KONTAKT & The Weather Network
FEATURING
Koliada with Balaklava Blues – Marichka & Mark Marczyk & Volo Bedzvin
Seasonal Selections - Pavlo Fondera & Vlada Fondera
Koliadky & Schedrivky – Crescendo Ensemble
Malanka Traditions – Prof. Natalia Khanenko-Friesen
Stardust Jazz Duo – Victor Kowalenko & Zhanna Zinchenko
Marta Czurylowicz, Event Host
Marta Czurylowicz has been the host of Canada’s Ukrainian channel, KONTAKT, for more than a decade. Along with hosting the weekly program, she remains closely connected with her Ukrainian roots. She taught and performed traditional dance at Barvinok Ukrainian Dance School. She served as a Canadian election observer for both the presidential elections in May 2014 and the parliamentary elections in October 2014. She has hosted numerous events including Bloor West Village Toronto Ukrainian Festival; Rock, Reforms and Relief: A Weekend for Ukraine; Soyuzivka’s Cultural Festival; and the Ukraine-Kyiv Pavilion at Folklorama in Winnipeg. Marta has worked at Canadian news outlets, including Sun News Network, CTV News in Winnipeg and CTV News in Kitchener. Today she is a content creator and reporter at The Weather Network.
Balaklava Blues
Mark and Marichka Marzcyk are the creators of the award-winning guerilla-folk-opera Counting Sheep and leaders of the mighty Lemon Bucket Orkestra, Canada's infamous 12 piece balkan-klezmer-gypsy-punk super band. They have won a Scotsman Fringe First Award, two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, several Canadian Folk Music awards and an Amnesty International Freedom of Speech commendation, among other accolades. More recently Mark and Marichka have been touring with their avant-folk project Balaklava Blues, which falls somewhere between a traditional song cycle and a full-blown multimedia techno show that uses EDM, trap, dub step and more as a launching pad to explore the seemingly never-ending blues that have long emanated from the Ukrainian steppe. The duo’s Balaklava Blues project debuted at Luminato Festival in Toronto and Latitude Festival in the U.K. and then went on an 11-show humanitarian aid tour of Ukraine, including stops in the war-torn Donbas region. They met and fell in love during the Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv and together are an incredibly creative musical force. Their first single, “Don't Leave Me,” was featured in The Invisible Battalion, a film about women on the front lines of the Donbas war, and was released by Ukrainian future-pop star Ivan Dorn’s experimental label Masterskaya. At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Mark and Marichka started URGNT, a crowd-funded online venue, partnering with festivals and presenters across Canada to present over 40 of the country’s most dynamic artists. Marichka, an ethnomusicologist, is currently working with the Ukrainian Research and Documentation Centre, housed at SVI, on resurrecting some of the forgotten traditional music of Ukraine. Together they will launch the interactive and free virtual portal FOLK SONGS OF UKRAINE later this year.
Volodymyr (Volo) Bedzvin
Born into a family of professional musicians, Volodymyr Bedzvin’s parents were members of Lugansk Symphonic Orchestra (Ukraine) and college music teachers. Volodoymyr (Volo) started violin lessons at the age of five and the cello a few years later and was considered a child prodigy. He studied at Kharkiv Secondary Special Music Boarding School from 2001 to 2007, and performed regularly in string quartets and various ensembles and in the Regional and All-Ukrainian Musical Competitions between 2004-2007. Volo passed vigorous examinations to continue his studies at the Lviv National Academy of Music, renowned for its European classical music training. However, with a growing interest in the music of our time, he began to perform and record world music, Ukrainian folk and pop rock music with professional musicians and bands such as, Ludy Dobri, Tatosh Banda and Mosaic. Volo has performed throughout Ukraine and toured to Poland, Scotland, and Canada, in addition to his appearances on the TV show – Ukraine’s Got Talent. Volodymyr moved to Canada in 2015 where he continues exploration of the sonic capabilities of the cello utilizing modern technology looping and effect pedals and collaborates with Mark and Marichka Marczyk, among other artists.
Pavlo Fandera & Vlada Fondera
Pavlo Fondera is a Ukrainian musician, singer, choirmaster, librettist, poet and playwright. He was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine where he finished Zhytomyr Musical College. He holds degrees in choir conducting and vocal performance from the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts. His musical career began with the Revutsky Municipal Male Choir and he continued a prolific career in Ukraine as a choir member and soloist with the renowned chamber choir Kredo, the Ukrainian academic ensemble Kalyna, the Kyiv Municipal Academic Opera Theatre, and the Kyiv Symphonic Orchestra and Choir. Concert tours with these ensembles garnered much success in Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, U.S.A. and Canada. Today Pavlo lives in Toronto where he is choirmaster-conductor of the Canadian Bandurist Capella (Toronto), artistic director and conductor of Prometheus Choir, and assistant conductor, chorister and soloist with the Toronto Ukrainian Male Chamber Choir. He also performs as a solo artist and provides voice instruction. Most recently, he is the artistic director and conductor of a new Toronto ensemble Crescendo.
Vlada Fondera was born in Lviv, Ukraine and has a deep musical pedigree. With her parents, she moved to Kyiv where she had the opportunity to study choral music and bandura at the Herman Zhukovskyj School of Music. Since immigrating to Toronto last year, Vlada is a grade 10 student at Bishop Allen Academy and is earning a reputation as soloist and performer with musical ensembles throughout Ontario.
Crescendo Ensemble
"Crescendo" is a musical term that means a gradual increase in loudness and intensity. Making sounds increasingly louder or quieter lends a range of emotions and enhances the musical experience. Such is the experience with the vocal ensemble Crescendo created in 2020 under the baton of maestro Pavlo Fondera. In a very short time, this ensemble has mastered a varied, complex and interesting repertoire. The majority of members trained with the Ukrainian Youth Association ensemble Prolisok. They welcome youth who are interested in developing their musical talent.
Dr. Natalia Khanenko-Friesen
Professor Natalia Khanenko-Friesen is the Huculak Chair of Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography and Director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. A native of Kyiv, she completed a B.A. in geography at Kyiv State University before pursuing her graduate studies at the University of Alberta, where she first earned her master’s degree in Ukrainian folklore and then obtained a joint doctoral degree in anthropology and Ukrainian folklore. She was a professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of History. Over the course of her studies and academic career she has worked as an ethnographer at the Museum of Folk Life and Architecture in Kyiv, a lecturer at the University of Alberta and the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute, a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, and most recently, a research fellow at Harvard University. Her wide-ranging intellectual interests and areas of expertise include oral history, vernacular culture, narrative and ritual; diasporas, ethnicity, and migration; post-socialist Ukraine and Eastern Europe; Canada and Ukrainian Canadians.
Stardust Jazz Duo
Zhanna Zinchenko began her musical education at the Mayboroda College of Music in Zaporizhia, Ukraine. She studied choir conducting at the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Kyiv under the National Opera of Ukraine’s head choirmaster, Professor Lev Venedyktov. Zhanna is a laureate in international choral and conducting competitions and has had a wide experience with a range of choirs as a choir member, vocalist and conductor. In 2001, she immigrated to Canada and soon after her arrival assumed duties as the deputy choir conductor at the St. Demetrius Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Toronto where she continues her work. She was asked by maestro Roman Hurko to take over the leadership of the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir in Toronto and has been the choir’s conductor and artistic director since 2004. In 2011, the Ukrainian Youth Ensembles Corporation engaged Zhanna to conduct their women’s choir Levada and men’s choir Orion. In January 2020, at the Velyka Koljada Festival in Lviv, Zhanna conducted the St. Nicholas Church Choir in the world premieres of Roman Hurko’s arrangement of “Svjatsi sydily, kaminnja byly” (The Saints Sat, Breaking Stone), Adrian Ivakhiv’s arrangement of “Ponad bukovym lisom” (Above the Beech-tree Forest), a specially prepared quadri-lingual version of “The Huron Carol/Iesus Ahattonia,” and her own arrangement of “Oj pidemo, pane brate” (Oj, We Shall Go, My Brother). The performances garnered international praise. Zhanna is also a piano teacher, vocal coach, and she is known for her work with children. She has recently begun a jazz collaboration with Victor Kowalenko in a duo Stardust. As a young artist living in Zaporizhia, Zhanna pursued her love of jazz in solo performances. While studying in Kyiv she performed with Beauty Band, a women’s a cappella jazz group and in Canada she had the opportunity of debuting with the jazz band Orpheus. Her adaptable voice lends itself equally from classical to jazz and sacred music.
Victor Kowalenko is a versatile jazz pianist and musician who has performed extensively throughout Canada and beyond. He was musical director for the Village Trio a piano trio that performed in fashionable Yorkville in a variety of styles from the light classics to Broadway and jazz. He performs at restaurants, in hotel lounges, and at private parties and weddings providing jazz styling for his clients. As a music educator with the Toronto Catholic District School Board at the high school level, Victor organized jazz bands, show bands and singers. He arranged performances in locations such as: Hawaii, California, Bahamas, Cuba, Florida, New York City, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Now retired from teaching, he’s a passionate performer who loves to work and train young up-and-coming singers and musicians both in jazz and a cappella liturgical styles. Recently Victor started collaborating with Zhanna Zinchenko in a jazz duo called Stardust. Zhanna is a hidden gem of a singer that Victor believes will turn a lot of heads at future events in Toronto and beyond.