Hero of Ukraine, Ukrainian composer, conductor, bandurist.
From the biography
He was born in a peasant family, which had its pedigree from the "Cossack state". From a young age, he was interested in art and was a member of various groups: musical, dramatic and singing.
Teaching
At the age of 20, G. Kitasty entered the Poltava Music Technical School at the vocal and choral department. It was not easy to study and earn a living. In his "Autobiography" he gratefully mentions the director of the technical school, the head of the Poltava Choir Chapel, Fyodor Popadych, who, apparently, noticing the considerable talent of his student, paid him special attention, and took care of improving his living conditions.
In 1930, after graduating from the music technical school, he entered the Kyiv Music and Drama Institute named after Mykola Lysenko.
While studying at the conducting and bandmaster faculty, he mastered the technique of playing the violin, cornet, and bandura.
After completing the course of study at the choirmaster's faculty, in 1933, on the advice of theorist Hryhoriy Lyubomirskyi, he transferred to the composition faculty. During his studies, he often performed as a bandurist as part of agit-cult brigades. At the same time, he met the bandurists of the Kyiv Chapel, with whom he performed from time to time at concerts, and later, at the end of 1935, became an active member.
In 1935, from the remnants of the Poltava and Kyiv chapels, which were disbanded earlier in 1934, the State Exemplary Chapel of Bandurists of Ukraine was assembled. In it, Hryhoriy Kitasty became the concertmaster, and in 1941 - the deputy artistic director.
Ukrainian bandurist band named after T. Shevchenko
With the beginning of the Second World War, the chapel was disbanded. The younger ones were called up for active combat formations, and the older ones - for digging anti-tank ditches around Kyiv.
Of those who went to the front, many died, some were captured, among them was Hryhoriy Kitasty. He was lucky to escape from captivity and return to Kyiv. In the city occupied by the Germans, he joined the other 16 artists of the already formed band, giving it the name of Taras Shevchenko.
After a long wait, at the beginning of 1942, the German authorities allowed a two-week tour of the chapel in the villages of Kyiv region. The concerts were wildly successful, and this inspired the artists.
In the spring, the band went on a concert tour of Volyn and Galicia, from which the group was recalled to Kyiv and soon, in September 1942, was taken to the Reich under the guise of a tour. The artists spent two months in the camp of ostarbeiters (workers from the east) Schupen 43 in Hamburg. They worked in a rivet shop, making some parts for submarines. On holidays, concerts were given for camp workers.
Thanks to the intervention of Andriy Lytsev, the editor of the newspaper for ostarbaiters "Ukrainets", the band managed to escape from the camp.
At the end of November, a message was received from Berlin about the transfer of the team to concert work. Remaining in the status of ostarbeiters throughout the war, the musicians of the band constantly traveled to German cities where there were the most Ukrainian workers, and had to perform in front of international audiences. Everywhere their performances were held with triumph.
Germany
In 1943-1944, the band was on tour in Galicia for 9 months. In particular, on March 8-9, 1943, the Bandurist Chapel was in Drohobych and gave two concerts in the city. In Turka, the chaplains met the poet Ivan Bagryany. Hryhoriy Kitasty befriended him, and this friendship and creative collaboration lasted until the last days of Ivan Bagryany's life (1963).
In Turka, the poet wrote several patriotic war poems. They immediately entered the repertoire of the chapel, with which she performed in the villages, cities of Western Ukraine and in the forests in front of the soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
After the end of the war, the musicians of the Chapel ended up in a camp for displaced persons. Hryhoriy Kitasty worked tirelessly on the band's concert programs, whose performances were extremely successful in camps for displaced persons in Western Europe. In 1946, fascinated by the personality of Yury Tyutyunnik, Kitasty together with Ivan Bagryan wrote "Song about Tyutyunnik" (see Interesting facts).
USA
Hryhoriy Kitasty lived in Detroit, later for a short time in California, in 1964 he moved to Chicago, where he led the first ensemble of bandurists of the Association of Democratic Ukrainian Youth (ODUM).
At the end of 1967, he got married for the third time and moved to Cleveland, and from there he drove to Detroit for rehearsals (rehearsals) of the bandurist chapel.
The artist's interests were not limited to art. He was active in the social and political life of the Ukrainian community in the diaspora, and enjoyed playing chess.
In honor of the 70th birthday of Hryhoriy Kitasty, the branch of the Ukrainian Revolutionary Democratic Party, of which he was a member, congratulated him with the publication of the "Collection in honor of Hryhoriy Kitasty". The book was published in 1980 at the expense of the Ivan Bagryany Foundation and contains intelligence, articles, reviews, memories, as well as poems dedicated to the jubilee, and some of his works.
An old photo of the grave of H. Kitastoy in Band Brook, USA.
In 1984, Hryhoriy Kitasty was surprisedano became ill and died of cancer on April 6 in San Diego, California. He is buried in the Ukrainian Orthodox cemetery, next to the memorial church in Bound Brook, in the state of New Jersey (USA).
Title "Hero of Ukraine"
By Decree of the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko No. 1077/2008 of November 25, 2008, for outstanding personal contribution to the cause of the national and spiritual revival of Ukraine, the spread of Ukrainian culture and kobzar art in the world, the former conductor and head of the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian Bandurist Chapel in the USA, Hryhoriy Trokhimovych Kitasty, posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine with the State Order.
Interesting Facts
The text of the song about Yuri Tyutyunnik was created after Ivan Bagryany watched a film about the revolutionary times, which was made by Tyutyunnik himself and where he played himself.
The musical theme from the "Song of the Tobacconist" to the words of Ivan Bagryany was used by the American band The Ventures for the composition "Vibrations", its fragment was known in the USSR as a musical background for the "International Panorama" program.
Collection "Get up, people!" — the first publication in Ukraine of Hryhoriy Kitasty's works, written in different years.
Commemoration
In Poltava there is Hryhorii Kitastogo street.
Compositions
The noise of the steppes is for the bandurists' band
Publications
Kytasty, H. — Some Aspects of Ukrainian Music under the Soviets — Research Program on the USSR, Mimeographed Series No. 65, N.Y. 1965 (62 p.)
Kitasty G. — My autobiography — manuscript (48 p.)
Kitasty G. — Two decades of Ukrainian. Arts in Moscow — yes. "New Days", July, 1953
Kitasty G. — To the 50th anniversary of the First Bandurist Chapel in Ukraine — w. News, 1969. #29
Kitasty G. — New Year's greetings to my kobzar friends! — yes Bandura, #7-8, 1984
Kitasty G. — Eight-hour working day for artists, a house for the insane in Kyiv and others. — yes Bandura, #9-10, 1984
Kitasty G. - Bourgeois Galicia, Shevchenko's triumph over Stalin and still Ukraine - the same. Bandura, #9-10, 1984
Kitasty G. — Prime Minister Lyubchenko, Turkish Sultans, Marshal Blyukherenko and some other things — the same. Bandura, #9-10, 1984
Kitasty G. — Ukrasia, Visiting Tamerlane and the conspiracy against Moscow from Bug to Sudarya — same. Bandura, #9-10, 1984
