Basil Matyash (b. 26 August 1911 in Pavelche, Stanislavl District, Ukraine - d. 16 1982 in Sydney, Australia) was a Ukrainian conductor, singer-baritone, public figure and member of the Plast. Pavelche, Stanislaviv district, Galicia - d. 16 June 1982, Sydney, Australia) was a Ukrainian conductor, baritone singer, public and Plast activist.
Vasyl Matiyash was born in the village of Pavelche (now Pavlivka), Ivano-Frankivsk (then Stanislav) region, into a simple peasant family. From childhood, Vasyl grew up in a singing family, listening to folk and rifle songs performed by the large Matiyash family. He studied at a folk school in Pavloch.
With the formation of the OUN and the Pavelche branch of the OUN in 1934 under the leadership of Ivan Stavnychyi, all work with the youth of Pavelche was aimed at raising national consciousness. Vasyl Matiyash was one of the first to join the OUN, along with his brothers Ostap and Ivan.
He received his secondary education at the Stanislaviv Ukrainian Gymnasium. His singing abilities emerged during singing lessons in the house of the parish priest of Utornyky, Father Mykhailo Hanushevskyi. He continued his education at the Minor Theological Seminary in Lviv. Vasyl then became a student at the [Lviv Theological Seminary of the Holy Spirit], where the future Patriarch and Cardinal Josyf Slipyj was rector. He took an active part in the male vocal quartet of Lviv theologians consisting of: Ivan Zadorozhnyi (first tenor), Vasyl Yakubiak (second tenor), Vasyl Matiyash (baritone), and V. Vasylevych (bass).
He studied at the Lviv Higher Music Institute named after M. Lysenko, a student of the famous opera soloist Maria Sokil. In 1943 he graduated from the Music Academy in Vienna with a diploma in opera singing. He performed at the Graz Theatre in Austria and the National Theatre in Mannheim, Germany (1946-1947). He sang in operas such as Rigoletto, Pagliacci, La Boheme, The Barber of Seville and others. He married in 1945 to the pianist Erna von Giovanelli. In 1945-48 he gave more than 100 concerts in the American occupation zone of Germany.
After arriving in Australia in 1949, he organised choirs in the immigrant camps in Bonegilla and Albury. He settled in Sydney, where he worked as a forestry officer and devoted himself to musical, social, scouting and church activities.
He was the founder in 1951 of the Ukrainian men's choir Boyan in Sydney, and until his death was the conductor, founder and conductor of the Young Boyan Choir (1962-1975), and conductor of St Andrew's Church Choir in Lidcombe (1968-1982).
Matiyash was a member of the board of the Union of Ukrainian Organisations in Australia (UUA) (1980-1982), chairman of the Sydney Plast Stations (1962-1964), chairman of the Association of Ukrainian Catholic Organisations in Australia (1980-1982), and co-founder of the anti-alcohol society "Renaissance".
In the early 1950s, he recorded discs of his own singing, in 1975 - of the Boyan Choir (EMI), and in 1979 - a disc of folk songs "My Songs".
Died in Sydney, buried at Rookwood Cemetery.
