Music
Hryhory Kytasty
1907–1984 · composer, conductor, bandurist
Ukrainian émigré composer and conductor who brought the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus to Detroit in 1949, making the city the world center of the bandura tradition in exile.
- Born
Kobeliaky, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine)- Died
aged 77- Birth name
- Hryhoriy Trokhymovych Kytasty
- Also known as
- Hryhoriy Kytastyi · Григорій Китастий
- Detroit years
- 1949–1958, 1967–1984
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Kytasty was born in 1907 in Kobeliaky in the Poltava region, studied composition and choral conducting in Kyiv and learned the bandura, the Ukrainian plucked string instrument, joining the Kyiv Bandurist Capella in 1935. During the Second World War he led the ensemble's reconstituted form, the Shevchenko Bandurist Capella, through occupied Ukraine and Germany, where its members ended the war as displaced persons who refused to return to Stalin's Soviet Union. In 1949 the chorus emigrated to the United States and settled as a group in Detroit, where it took the English name Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus. Kytasty co-directed its 1958 European tour, then left for San Diego, Minneapolis, Chicago and Cleveland, but in 1967 he returned as conductor and music director and led the Detroit-based chorus until his death in 1984. His monumental Battle of Konotop marked its 50th anniversary in 1968. Ukraine named him a Hero of Ukraine in 2008.
Highlights
- Led the Bandurist Chorus to its new home in Detroit in 1949
- Conductor and music director of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, 1967–1984
- Composed Battle of Konotop for the chorus's 50th anniversary (1968)
- Hero of Ukraine, awarded posthumously in 2008