On April 7-8, Bard’s interdisciplinary “sound cluster” will be hosting a two-day symposium featuring many exciting scholars and artists. It’s been a thrill to organize this with my amazing colleagues, and, now that the website is up, you can see what we have planned…
I’m very pleased to announce that the Chornobyl Songs Project album, recorded in 2011, is going to be released on Smithsonian Folkways records on April 7, 2015. I’m planning an album release concert on Saturday, April 25th at the Ukrainian Museum in the East Village, NYC, and a smaller affair at Bard College (featuring Zozulka) on Wed, April 22nd. You can listen to a sneak preview of the record on the Smithsonian Folkways website here. 
It was nothing if not a hectic summer. We moved from Toronto to Virginia, bought a cute old house in the Hudson Valley, and unpacked our U-Haul. Then we left for a month-long trip to Ukraine, where Lesia learned to run, and did so through various sites in Kyiv, Lviv and numerous Hutsul villages. We returned in early August to begin the process of settling in, and then spent Labor Day weekend in Hunter, where Zozulka had a performance at the Grazhda Music & Arts Center of Greene County, which was all kinds of wonderful. Yesterday, I led my first two classes at Bard College (“Introduction to Ethnomusicology” and “Musical Exoticisms”). Both courses are way past their enrollment limits, which may bode well for the future of ethnomusicology on this campus. Following the first day of classes, and missing my little family, we drove over to Woodstock’s Big Deep for a beautiful late summer, early evening swim.
And now, back to class prep.
Zozulka has two concerts in May: at Brooklyn’s Balkan Branded Saloon in Prospect Heights on Wed, May 14th (with Macedonian Band Odglasi) and on Saturday, May 17 at the Lyceum in Alexandria, VA. Join us!
Events in Crimea are troubling and upsetting. In 2008, I did this project with the photographer Alison Cartwright, in its online incarnation on Triple Canopy: No Other Home: The Crimean Tatar Repatriates.
Save these dates!
TORONTO, Friday, March 7: Hart House Piano Room at the University of Toronto, 7 PM.
WASHINGTON, DC, Saturday, May 17: Lyceum, Alexandria VA, 3 PM (hosted by the Washington Group Cultural Fund).
More details to come.
Next Wednesday, October 2, I’ll be introducing the amazing Ukrainian “ethno-chaos” band DakhaBrakha (who are on their first North American tour) at Boston University’s “Global Music Lunchtime Concert Series.” That evening, at 5 PM, I’ll be giving a talk (titled “Chornobyl Songs: ‘Nature’ After Nuclear Disaster”) as part of BU’s Musicology & Ethnomusicology Department colloquium series.
Torontonians should note that DakhaBrakha will also be in town as part of the Small World Music Festival on October 6th at Revival Bar. At noon on that day, the Kosa Kolektiv will be hosting an intimate masterclass with the members of DakhaBrakha at St. Vladimir’s Institute – definitely worth checking out.
My dear friend Jenna Bean Veatch made this sweet video for my song, “Little Blue Jay.” (Bedroom recording by yours truly, with Franz Nicolay at the controls.) Jenna will be using part of it in her upcoming theater/dance piece with Nadia Tarnawsky, called “50 Heartbreaks (And I’m Still in Love with YOUkraine).” This is heartbreak #32.
I’ll be giving a little “intro to the Hutsuls” talk at Saint Vladimir’s Institute in Toronto this Saturday night, in tandem with an ongoing exhibition by the French photographer Youry Bilak. I’ve titled it, “Who Are the Hutsuls? From Dovbush to ‘Dyki Tantsi’.” This Saturday at 7 PM, free admission.
Maria Sonevytsky 