Blazhen/Блажен (Blessed) by St. Nicholas Choir
"Blessed" (Blazhen/Блажен) consists of Ukrainian Byzantine rite liturgical choral song, performed by the Youth Choir of the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church in Toronto under the direction of Adrian Ivakhiv.
The St. Nicholas Youth Choir was formed in 1985 at the St. Nicholas Church in the lively Queen West neighborhood of Toronto. Its first conductors were Roman Hurko and Taras Kovalchuk, who met as fellow students of master classes in conducting given by the late Volodymyr Kolesnyk. The choir's early membership overlapped with the Avant-Garde Ukrainian Theatre, a creative collective founded by young refugees from Poland who fled in the days following the banning of the Solidarity trade union. The choir attracted new voices with its fresh yet traditional approach to Ukrainian Byzantine liturgical chant. In 1987, the baton was passed to Adrian Ivakhiv, also a student of Maestro Kolesnyk's and of the Music Department at York University.
The choir was rebranded the "St. Evtymiy Choir" in the early 1990s as a gesture of gratitude to monk-benefactor Fr. Evtymiy Volynsky, hegumen of the Studite Monastery in Woodstock, Ontario, who supported the choir's travels to Israel, Palestine, and Egypt in 1988 (to mark the millennium of the adoption of Christianity in Rus'-Ukraine and to pray for world peace) and to Italy and Ukraine in 1992. The choir also performed original works alongside the Avant-Garde Ukrainian Theatre in Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens in 1988 as part of the Ukrainian-Canadian community celebrations of the aforementioned millennium. In 1992, the choir accompanied the transfer and reburial of the late Ukrainian Catholic Patriarch Josyf Slipyj from Rome to Lviv, Ukraine.
In 2000, Roman Hurko returned as principal conductor. In 2002, the choir's members joined with the women's choir Vesnivka to celebrate the St. Nicholas Parish's Golden Jubilee by singing Hurko's Liturgy 2000. Hurko's liturgical music can be heard and purchased at www.romanhurko.com.
The choir continues to this day as the St. Nicholas Church Choir. Its conductors have included co-founder Roman Hurko (for several periods between 1985 and 2002), Adrian Ivakhiv (from 1987 to 1989 and again from 1991 to 2000), Renata Duma (1989-90), and Artem Pankevych (1989-90). Since 2002 it has been directed by Zhanna Zinchenko. You can follow the choir at its Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/stnicholasukrainiancatholicchurchchoir/
"Blazhen" ("Blessed Be") was recorded under Adrian Ivakhiv's direction on two occasions in 1993 and 1994. It includes well-known works from the East Slavic sacred choral repertoire by Rachmaninoff (track 9), Bortnianskyj (14, 15), Leontovych (16), and Kedrov (21), as well as original compositions by Ivakhiv (tracks 6-8, 13, 19) and Hurko (tracks 2-5, 17) and original arrangements of old sacred hymns by Ivakhiv (11, 22, 23).
Adrian Ivakhiv studied music history, harmony, and piano performance at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto (under Tania Tkachenko among others), and participated in conducting classes given by Maestro Volodymyr Kolesnyk in Edmonton, Alberta. He graduated with a BFA from York University in 1985, having studied composition with James Tenney, improvisation with Casey Sokol, and electronic music with Philip Werren. He has also composed music for theatre (including "Requiem for Vasyl Stus," performed with the Avant-Garde Ukrainian Theatre), an oratorio entitled "Between Trident and Cross" (performed at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1988), chamber works, and electronic music. His works have been performed in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Cambridge (Harvard University), Detroit, Chicago, and Lviv and Kyiv in Ukraine.
Proceeds from sales of this music will fund the continued financial needs of the St. Nicholas Choir.
Tracklist
Credits
Recorded by Zenon Waschuk and Myroslav Bodnaruk with the assistance of Natalia Latyshko and Ihor Ilnytskyi in the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church in Toronto, in May 1993 and March 1994. The album is dedicated to the memory of choir member Anna Daciuk (1969-1996), Bohdan Gula (1930-1997), and Rev. Marian Iwachiw (1958-1994).
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Adrian Ivakhiv (ee-VAHKH-eev) has worked in multiple genres including electroacoustic, chamber, choral, avant-rock, free improv, ambient, and experimental composition. He has made electronic music under the alias "vax" (pronounced "vah(kh)") since the 1980s, and conducted the St. Nicholas Choir in Toronto from 1987 to 2000. He lives by the Salish Sea. More info at blog (first link below).