Ethnic Folk Music Archive from Poland & Eastern Europe - The Songs of Polesie: Ukraine

Music Lost/Found
The Songs of Polesie: Ukraine
Ethnic folk music from Eastern Europe (Ukraine)
Recordings from Andrzej Bienkowski's archives from years 2003-2007
www.musiclostfound.com

Label: Muzyka Odnaleziona, Poland (2008)
Catalogue No: 005
Format: Book with CD
Book: 58 pages, size 15 X 14 cm (5.5" x 5.9"), hard cover binding, in Polish language, many photos with detailed description.
CD: 28 tracks, total time 59 min 37 seconds

The Songs of Polesie: Ukraine

Ukraine, the autumn of 2003. The day is short and we have all that ghastly waiting around at corrupt border crossings. By nightfall we find ourselves on some potholed back road. Every attempt to exceed 40km per hour results in rocks pelting the underside of the car. Later that night we make it to a dark, mysterious and seemingly sleepy little village – home to one of Ukraine’s most splendid singers, Dania Czekun. Her singing gave rise to the production of this CD.

The CD contains wedding and ceremonial choral songs, performed by women from the region bordering with Poland and all the way to Chernobyl (where we also recorded). These women are the guardians of traditional culture in Ukraine.

Andrzej Bienkowski

Program:

1.  Song from Zariczne Region, 2003 Domynika Czekun, Natalia Czekun, Nadia Petrowec

2.  Song from Zariczne Region, 2003 Tatiana Waskowicz band

3.  Song from Sarny Region, 2006 Wasyl Zinowiewicz Zabczik band

4.  Song from Rejon Kamin Kaszyrski, 2007 Marija Demianiwna Bosak band

5.  Song from Olewsk Region, 2006 Marija Lukaszowna Kuzmicz band

6.  Song from Owrucz Region, 2006 Maria Michajlowa Dub band

7.  Song from Dubrowica Region, 2004 Iwan Petrowec

8.  Song from Kamin Kaszyrski Region, 2007 Jewdokija Panaszewna Trindziuk and Hanna Antoniuk

9.  Song from Rokitne Region, 2005 Tana Ruskia band

10.  Song from Dubrowica Region, 2003 Anastazja Czumuniewicz band

11.  Song from Rokitne Region, 2006 Ustina Andrejewna Krepiec band

12.  Song from Rokitne Region, 2006 Fiedora Bogaszenko

13.  Song from Zariczne Region, 2004 Tatiana Waskowicz band

14.  Song from Rokitne Region, 2006 Fiedora Bogaszenko band

15.  Song from Rokitne Region, 2006 Stiepan Kuzmicz Sergijowicz band

16.  Song from Dubrowica Region, 2004 Olga Czudynowicz band

17.  Song from Olewsk Region, 2005 Olena Pinczuk band

18.  Song from Ratne Region, 2007 Olga Niniczuk

19.  Song from Dubrowica Region, 2003 Nadia Jewsonowycz, Anastazja Czumuniewicz, Hanna Czumuniewicz

20.  Song from Rejon Kowel, 2007 Katerina Repeta

21.  Song from Chernobyl Region, 2005 Polina Sydorenko band

22.  Song from Dubrowica Region, 2004 Marija Andrejewna Jewhimec band

23.  Song from Rokitne Region, 2006 Zespól Ustiny Krepiec

24.  Song from Sarny Region, 2005 Wasyla Zinowiewicz Zabczyk band

25.  Song from Rokitne Region, 2006 Oleksander Pawlowicz Czumuniewicz

26.  Song from Kowel Region, 2007 Galina Wasyliewna Sawiniuk band

 

About Music Lost/Series

Poland, 1980, and Communism is facing collapse. Petrol is being rationed, the shops are empty. I begin my journey through the countryside to record music. It’s strange, because there are a great many folk bands, but their services are no longer required in the villages or towns. Musicians stop playing and sell off their instruments; slowly but surely they are forgotten. The first difficulty we faced was finding them replacement instruments. I met musicians who hadn’t seen each other in years, having once played weddings together regularly; this was the last generation of village musicians. Then came the dawn of the pop era. We filmed and made unique music recordings in the musicians’ homes, which were natural, stress-free environments. We searched throughout Poland, Ukraine and Belarus and found 1500 musicians, as well as singers, and from this number we reconstructed eighty bands. Our archive contains recordings of some of the oldest village bands, as well as contemporary wedding music. We have thousands of field photographs. However, the real jewels in our collection are undoubtedly the photographs taken by the original village photographers, who faithfully captured weddings, parties, funerals and daily life.

Andrzej Bienkowski

Andrzej Bienkowski is a painter, ethnographer, writer and professor at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. For the last thirty years he has traversed rural Poland to document and record the music of village fiddlers, accordionists and singers. He has produced many books and films about rural Polish music, including the Music Lost & Found series. He owns the largest private collection of rural music in Poland.

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