New vocal works written in Eastern European languages are the hot thing this year in Toronto, with productions such as Tapestry's
The Enslavement and Liberation of Oxana G (Ukrainian) and Queen of Puddings'
Svadba Wedding (Serbian) appearing this year. But these languages also have a tradition of art song, and Pavlo Hunka's
Musica Leopoldis label aims to bring to fruition new recordings of hundreds of songs for the Ukrainian Art Song Project. So far, several CDs of songs by
Yakiv Stepovyi,
Mykola Lysenko, and
Kyrylo Stetsenko have been completed, performed by a cast of mostly Canadian singers and pianists.
But that's not all. The UASP has also made available over
200 free art song scores by Ukrainian composers in multiple formats. So get to work and start looking through these forgotten gems of the art song repertoire to further enrich your recitals next season.
A short documentary about the project:
Interesting video!
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