Kytasty, Hryhory, b 17 January 1907 in Kobeliaky, Poltava gubernia, d 6 April 1984 in San Diego, California. Bandurist, composer, and conductor. He studied at the Poltava Musical Tekhnikum (1927-30) and the Lysenko Music and Drama School in Kyiv (1930-35, under M. Hrinchenko, L. Revutsky, and V. Kosenko). He was a member of the State Bandurist Kapelle of the Ukrainian SSR from its inception in 1935, serving as concertmaster and assistant director (from 1937). In 1941 Kytasty was conscripted into the Red Army and captured by the Germans. He soon managed to escape and returned to Kyiv, where he founded and became the first director of the Shevchenko Ukrainian Bandurist Kapelle, which reunited many of the original members of the State Bandurist Kapelle. This group was for a time interned in a Nazi concentration camp, but was subsequently allowed to tour Ukrainian Ostarbeiter camps in Western Europe. A displaced person after the war, he performed as a soloist and with the Kapelle throughout Western Europe, touring Ukrainian displaced persons camps and organizing bandura classes. He immigrated to the United States in 1949 and settled in Detroit with the entire ensemble, which was renamed the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus. He served as conductor and director of the Chorus to 1954, in 1958-59, and from 1967 to his death. Kytasty wrote countless original works and arrangements of folk songs for choir and bandura accompaniment, solo bandura, choir and piano, and bandura orchestra. He also composed several dumy and put the works of various Ukrainian poets to music, including Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Bahriany, O. Oles, B. Oleksandriv, and V. Symonenko. Many of his compositions have entered the repertoire of almost every bandura ensemble in the West, especially the haunting instrumental piece Homin Stepiv (Echo of the Steppe). Kytasty was a tireless propagator of the bandura art. He taught numerous courses and seminars on the bandura and influenced an entire generation of bandurists in North America.

W. Wytwycky

Kubijovyc, Volodymyr (ed.) Encyclopedia of Ukraine (Toronto 1988)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Samchuk, U. Zhyvi struny, Bandura i bandurysty Detroit 1976

Hurs'kyi, Ia. (ed). Zbirnyk na poshanu Hryhoriia Kytastoho u 70-richchia z dnia narodzhennia (New York 1980)

Please visit the Kytasty Foundation website to learn more about the work of Hryhory Kytasty -- www.kytastyfoundation.org

December 27, 2005