ВСЕ БУДЕ УКРАЇНА—Ukraine Lives! Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North America

Friday, October 17, 2025 at 7:00pm
Crowell Concert Hall

$15 general public; $12 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $8 Wesleyan students, youth under 18

The bandura, often called Ukraine’s national instrument, tells the story of the Ukrainian people more powerfully than any textbook. The plucked-string folk instrument carries centuries of tradition, resistance, and identity. The 60-stringed bandura unifies acoustic principles of both the lute and the harp to produce a sound that is emphatic and gentle, reminiscent of a harpsichord but with greater dynamics and tonal control.

Formed in Kyiv in 1918, the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus has surmounted every challenge in modern Ukrainian history. From Joseph Stalin’s attempts to wipe out the kobzar (Ukrainian bard) tradition, to arrests and wartime exile, the ensemble survived—landing in Detroit, Michigan in 1949, where it preserved the spirit, strength, and history of Ukraine in diaspora, banned for over 70 years under devastating Soviet rule. The Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus has been awarded the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian State Prize and the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts category in the United States. Today, as Ukraine defends itself against a full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus is a powerful symbol of cultural survival.

This will be the first concert by the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus in Connecticut since 2007.