Music
Julian Kytasty
born 1958 · bandurist, kobzar, composer, singer
Detroit-born bandurist from a family of Ukrainian refugee musicians, trained in the city's Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, and a leading kobzar in the Western Hemisphere.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 68- Birth name
- Julian Petrovych Kytasty
- Detroit years
- 1958–1980
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Julian Kytasty was born in Detroit in 1958 into a family of Ukrainian refugees and musicians. He learned the bandura in the Detroit-based Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, in which his father, uncles and grandfather had played and conducted before him. In 1980 he moved to New York City to found the New York Bandura Ensemble and began a solo career that has taken him from the Arctic to Patagonia. In 1989 he toured Ukraine, giving more than a hundred concerts and appearing at the Chervona Ruta festival. He holds a master's degree in composition, theory and voice from Concordia University in Montreal, and his arrangements have entered the standard repertoire of bandurists worldwide. He has written avant-garde and theater music, notably for New York's Yara Arts Group, recorded Black Sea Winds – Music of the Kobzari of Ukraine, played with the pipa virtuoso Wu Man and the klezmer band Brave Old World, and has been called the finest representative of the kobzar tradition in the Western Hemisphere.
Highlights
- Trained in Detroit's Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus
- Founded the New York Bandura Ensemble (1980)
- Toured Ukraine with more than a hundred concerts in 1989
- Album Black Sea Winds – Music of the Kobzari of Ukraine