Ukrainian Art Song Summer Institute: Sophia Bolonna (mezzo-soprano), Catharin Carew (mezzo-soprano), Samantha Fullerton (soprano), Juliana Hentosz (soprano), Polina Kornyushenko (soprano), Violetta Kurkurina (piano), Lana Pastuszak (soprano), Olivia Pryce-Digby (soprano), Anna Tanczak (soprano) / Steven Philcox (piano), Lianne Regehr (piano) / Melanie Turgeon (opening remarks) / Temerty Theatre, Telus Centre for Performance and Learning, August 17, 2025.
It’s that time of year again!
Every August since 2017, except for the 2020 and 21 COVID years, the Ukrainian Art Song Summer Institute has presented its annual concert in Toronto, showcasing its roster of aspiring young artists who have just completed a one-week immersive workshop on Ukrainian art songs.
This year, participants hailed from Austria, United States, Ukraine as well as Canada. Since its inception, the Summer Institute has supported 43 artists in the program and introduced the beauty of Ukrainian art songs to the public, including yours truly.
The Summer Institute is an offshoot of the Ukrainian Art Song Project that was founded in 2004. The UASP is the principal project of the Canadian Ukrainian Opera Association, which is celebrating its 21st anniversary.
The mission of UASP is to introduce the beauty of Ukrainian art songs to music lovers around the world. In addition to concerts, it has established an online Ukrainian art song database, making the wealth of Ukrainian art songs available to everyone.
As well, art songs numbering some 1,000 are in the process of being recorded. Several CDs are already commercially available. Everyone attending the Sunday concert was gifted with a 2 CD set of songs by Kyrylo Stetsenko.
I have been attending the Summer Institute concerts from the very beginning. It’s always a pleasure to hear fresh young voices singing these songs, giving their all in a repertoire new to them, under the mentorship of co-artistic directors Dr. Melanie Turgeon and tenor Benjamin Butterfield, vocal coach Andrea Ludwig, as well as pianists Steven Philcox and Leanne Regehr.
This year’s concert, its seventh, took place in the Temerty Theatre of the Telus Centre for Performance and Learning. The space was packed, likely up to the maximum allowable capacity based on the fire code. This spacious room is suitable for a theatre-in-the-round configuration, ideal for greater artist-audience communication.
The Singers
Well, did these nine young artists ever communicate! This year for the first time and by pure coincidence, all the performers were women. All at or near the beginning of their artistic journey as performers. To be sure, the eight singers possessing youthful, fresh voices in varying stages of development.
To my ears, some of the voices are technically more accomplished, while others are more works in progress. Typically, it takes young voices some years to grow and develop the hall-filling volume of sound needed for concert halls and opera houses. At this point in their development, the art song genre is ideal.
Likely most of them had little or no previous experience of singing in Ukrainian. It was therefore quite remarkable how much they accomplished in one short week.
The Songs
Another first this year was the presence of a composer in residence, that of Ukrainian composer Myroslav Volynsky. He was joined by his wife, poet Anna Volynska, whose texts were used in some of his songs.
Of the 22 songs on the program, 14 were composed by Maestro Volynsky, including two new songs composed specifically for the occasion: “The Heavens of our Souls” and “To Ukraine.” These two songs, sung by the whole ensemble, opened and closed the formal program.
The program also contained songs by Mykola Lysenko, Ostap Nyzhankivsky, Kyrylo Stetsenko, Stefania Turkewich, Yakiv Stepovy and Petro Haidamaka. These songs range musically from the high Romanticism of Lysenko and Stetsenko to the more angular and edgier Modernist style of Stefania Turkewich, who incidentally was a student of Arnold Schònberg!
While I admit to having a soft spot for melodies, I can honestly say that I found something to like in every song. In fact, I find the songs by our 21st century composer in residence, Mr. Volynsky, to be tonal and accessible. For example, his two-sopranos duet, “The Golden Oriole,” is totally delightful.
All the songs are grouped into themes of love, war and hardship, freedom and destiny. Given the ongoing Russian invasion, some of the songs are unbearably poignant.
Ending the program was Volynsky’s “To Ukraine,” set to text by Volodymyr Samijlenko. Given the suffering of the Ukrainian people, reading the text brought a lump to my throat.
Final Thoughts
With the end of the formal program, the audience joined in to sing the Ukrainian patriotic song, “Bozhe velykyi, yedynyi”, a prayer by Mykola Lysenko. It’s the same song that concluded the concert in previous years. We were given the sheet music with the text phonetically translated into English so that everyone could join in.
As we the audience were singing, I couldn’t help but think of the huge suffering of the Ukrainian people brought on by the Russian invasion, now into its fourth year. I recall writing in my reviews that I wished the war would end soon. Sadly, it’s still raging on. One can only continue to hope and pray for peace.
In the meantime, music, with its power to comfort and heal, is more important than ever. Let’s hope for a better tomorrow.
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