Program

Opening and Prayer

Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies: Children’s performance

Kalyna presentation: Milwaukee’s youngest dancers who will showcase their art expressing their love for Ukraine.

Promin Presentation: Milwaukee’s preteen and teenage dancers will perform Ukrainian poetry.

Zorian Duffek: Ukrainian song “Earth My Sweet” by Ukrainian band Embrace the Rain.

Krystia Nora: Poem “The Earth Remembers”

St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Choir and St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Choir

“Prayer for Ukraine” by Mykola Lysenko (1842 -1912)

Solomiya Kavyuk: A Ukrainian’s Story

Intermission

Olena Jennings: Poem “My Ukraine”

Roman Rudnytsky, piano

Impromptu in A Flat, op. 90 no. 4 by Franz Schubert  (1797-1828)

Nocturne in C sharp minor, op. posth by Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849)

Rondo Capriccioso by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Tema con variazioni (from Sonata, op.10) by Antin Rudnytsky (1902-1975)

Tatiana Migliaccio, violin

Melody by Myroslav Skoryk (1938 – 2020)

Zinoviy Butkovsky, bayan and voice

Iyshla selom partizani [Patriot Soldiers in the Village] Ukrainian Folk Song

Zinoviy Butkovsky, bayan / Krystia Nora, mezzo-soprano

Rushnichok by Platon Maiboroda (1918-1989)

Tatiana Migliaccio, violin / Zinoviy Butkovsky, bayan

Waltzes from Kyiv

Ukrainian Kozak Folk Songs

Lesya Klimchenko, bandura& voice / Tatiana Magliaccio, violin / Anya Nakonechna, voice

“Pid Tvoyu Milist'” [Under Your Mercy] by Dmitri Bortnianksy (1725 -1825)

Roman Rudnytsky, piano / Krystia Nora, mezzo soprano

From “Four Songs of Enslaved Ukraine, op. 26” (1945) by Antin Rudnytsky

Ukrayins’ka Zemlya [Ukrainian Land]

Tih Voskresnesh Ukrayina [You will rise again, Ukraine!]

Roman Rudnytsky, piano

Venus, The Bringer of Peace (from THE PLANETS) by Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

(transcription for piano by Katsuma Nakajima)

Hutzul Dance by Antin Rudnytsky

Anya Nakonechna: A Ukrainian’s Story

Anya Nakonechna: Leads all performers and the audience in the Ukrainian National Anthem

Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies

• • Teacher: Oksana Hnidets
  • Polina Zazulyak
  • Emily Zazulyak
  • Oleksii Luchyn
  • Nicole Rusin
  • Katharine Levytska
  • Anya Sofiya Iskra
  • David Husenytsya
  • Veronika Vakhula
  • Sophia Nowakowski

Kalyna

• • Director: Dania Stachiw-Hietpas
  • Anna Nora
  • Theresa Nora
  • Mila Hietpas
  • Mia Bella Hots
  • Katie Niderman
  • Rina Niderman

Promin

• • Director: Amy Mulhall
  • Caitlyn Mulhall
  • Dennis Ovod
  • Gregory Popowycz
  • Kate Salapata
  • Yaroslav Salapata
  • Andriy Vorochuk
  • Oleksandr Vorochuk
  • Yuriy Vorochuk
  • Aubry Stringfellow

St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir

• • Director: Roman Papushak
  • Nadiya Kavuk
  • Anhelina Kudrynkskyy
  • Vasyl Ovod
  • Anya Nakonechna
  • Oksana Nakonechna
  • Krystia Nora
  • Irene Nowak
  • Inna Shpachuk
  • Joseph Spolowicz
  • Olha Vorochuk

St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church Choir

1. • Director: Zinoviy Butkovsky
   • Tatiana Migliaccio
   • Yaroslava Butkovsky
   • Dana Bergey
   • Olesya Banakh
   • Andy Tyshynsky

Artists, Presenters, Directors:

Zinoviy Butkovsky, bayan player and singer, immigrated to the United States with his wife Slava from the Ukraine in 2002 and currently resides in Milwaukee. He is a graduate of both the Musical College and the Music Institute of the Ukraine. Mr. Butkovsky taught music in the city of Ternopil where he held classes in theory, Ukrainian Flute, Bayan and conducted the Choir. After coming to Milwaukee, he became the musical director of the Freilich Vocal Ensemble that performs for several local retirement communities in the Milwaukee and Chicago areas. He also is the musical director of St Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Milwaukee. In 2019, he acted and provided musical direction in the film comed, Give Me Liberty.

Zorian Duffek, guitarist and singer, is a Ukrainian diaspora American who has always been passionate about his roots, visiting family in Ukraine as often as possible, and occasionally participating in the Ukrainian Community in Milwaukee. He likes to play music and sing and has played guitar in local bands since his teens.

Oksana Hnidets, Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies director, retired as a schoolteacher in Ukraine and then moved to America to care for her aging mother here. She has worked in child education for most of her life, and she began directing the Milwaukee Ukrainian School in 2017.

Olena Jennings, poet, writer, and native of Milwaukee now living in New York City, is the author of the collection of poems Songs from an Apartment (Underground Books, 2017) and the chapbook Memory Projct (2018). Her translations of Ukrainian poetry have appeared in the anthology Words for War (Academic Studies Press, 2017) as well as Consequence, Asymptote, The Kitchen Poet, Poetry International, Wolf, and other journals. A volume of Jennings’s translations of Iryna Shuvalova’s verse, Pray to the Empty Walls, was published in 2019 by Lost Horse Press and won Honorable Mention in the AAUS Translation Prize. Her translation of Vasyl Makhno’s collection Paper Bridge is forthcoming from Plamen Press. She is founder and curator of the Poets of Queens reading series. Her novel Temporary Shelter was published in 2021 by Cervena Barva Press. She has an MA from University of Alberta and MFA from Columbia University.

Solomiya Kavyuk has become a passionate advocate for Ukraine, she was born in Ukraine and comes from a family that she says are “patriots who love their country loudly and proudly”. Her extended family currently resides in Ukraine and many are doing what they can to protect Ukraine and its residents. Since Solomiya cannot join them in their fight on the ground, she is fighting for them here. In the last several weeks, she has shone at the forefront of our marches, called on those who stand with Ukraine to sign petitions and to get ahold of their representatives to ensure they continue supporting Ukraine, and organized a t-shirt campaign to raise money for Ukraine that has already earned $3,500. She’s a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire.

Lesya Klimchenko, bandura player & singer, studied at the Lviv Conservatory, then worked as a bandura instructor at the Lviv Music School for children. Since moving to America, she has been part of the Women’s Bandura Ensemble of America.

Tatiana Migliaccio, violinist and Ukrainian flute player, is a graduate of the Lviv National Music Academy with a Master of Music. She began her musical career performing for the Lviv Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, touring such countries as Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, and Estonia. She has also performed with the Rockford Symphony Orchestra, the American Polish Orchestra, and the Chicago University Orchestra and performed with Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell and Doc Severinen. She has taught at Rockford College Music Academy and presently teaches at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. Together with her father Zinoviy Butkovsky, Ukrainian flute and bayan player, she has performed various Ukrainian classical and folk pieces throughout the region.

Amy Mulhall, Promin director, is an active member of the Ukrainian Community in Milwaukee.  Her maternal grandparents immigrated from Ukraine in 1950.  Her grandparents’ families still currently reside in Ukraine.  Amy tries to visit her family in Ukraine as much as she can and communicates with them weekly. She started dancing in 1980 in the Ukrainian Children’s dance group at the age of 3.  In 1992, she then joined the Dnipro Ukrainian Dance Ensemble (adult dance group). She was one of the lead Zabava coordinators from May 2008-Feb. 2017. Amy directed and managed the Dnipro (adult), Promin (youth), and Kalyna (children’s) Ukrainian Dance Ensembles from Jan 2008-June 2011. From then on, she continued to teach Kalyna (children’s) Ukrainian Dance Ensemble until September 2021.  And to this day, she remains the director of Promin (youth) Ukrainian Dance Emsemble from Milwaukee.  Amy also instructed the Ukrainian children’s language classes from Aug. 2011-Jan. 2016.

Anya Nakonechna, singer, immigrated with her family to Eau Claire, Wisconsin when she was one and half. Growing up in the Midwest, she has been active member within the Ukrainian Diaspora’s of Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and the Ukrainian Village in Chicago. Ever since moving to Milwaukee, Anya has danced with the Dnipro Ukrainian Dance Ensemble and is a member of the St.Michael’s Ukrainian Greek Catholic Choir. She has always represented Ukraine at international and cultural events. In 2018, Anya moved to her native city Lviv to study opera. Coming from a family full of musicians, she has sung all her life and is currently a 4th year vocal arts student at the Lviv National Music Academy named after Mykola Lysenko. Anya has participated in masterclasses with Viennese Opera soloist Zoryana Kushpler at the Lviv Philharmonic. Was an honorary participant in the 3rd Vienna International Music Competition. Awarded an honorary mention at the IV Solomiya Krushelnystka Voice Competition in Ternopil, as well as the International Ukrainian Tchaikovsky Voice Competition in Trostyanets, Sumy.

Krystia Nora, singer and poet, recently published the poems “Foraging Light” in Voices from the Attic, Volume 27 (2021) and “The Body Remembers” in the Milwaukee Independent (March 1,2022). Her interest in writing poetry began with her grandfather’s love of Taras Shevchenko, about which she published the essay “A Ukrainian Sunset” in the Ukrainian American women’s magazine Our Life (1995). In 2003, under the name Krystia Hancher, her CD Ukrainian Dreams co-featured pianist Roman Rudnytsky and was published by Yevshan. This album showcases repertoire of early 1940s Lviv radio and opera star Olha Sushko (Krystia’s grandmother), as well as the Antin Rudnytsky song cycle. Between these artistic ventures, Krystia was an English professor at California University of Pennsylvania (now Pennsylvania Western University) and is presently an English instructor at MATC who loves spending time with her family. She has a Bachelor of Music from Dana School of Music and a PhD in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Roman Papushak was born in Dubove village in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine where he finished seven years of piano study. From 2005 to 2011, he sang in the seminary choir of Ternopil, Ukraine. From 2011 to 2014, he sang in the seminary choir of Barcelona, Spain, before returning to Ukraine. Now he lives in Milwaukee with his wife Inna Shpachuk and has taken on the role of St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church choir conductor.

Dania Stachiw-Hietpas, master of ceremonies today and director of Kalyna, loves to organize events – especially events that contribute to Ukrainian cultural development and understanding here in America.

Roman Rudnytsky, pianist born in New York, is the older son of famed Ukrainian musicians Antin Rudnytsky (composer-conductor–pianist) and Maria Sokil (famed  prima donna opera singer).

A graduate of the Juilliard School in New York, he has been active as a concert pianist for many years and has now played in 100 countries.   He was prizewinner of ten international and national piano competitions, has played as soloist with many orchestras around the world, played many concerts through US Embassies in 35 countries (with repeat visits to many), and has played recitals on about 70 cruises of P&O and Cunard ships.

In addition, he was a university professor of piano and music for many years—first, at Indiana University in Bloomington IN and at the Univ. of Cincinnati College-Conservatory, but mostly at Youngstown (OH) State University–Dana School of Music, from which he retired in 2011 and is now “Professor Emeritus.”

Recent concerts (last fall) took place here in the USA, including his sixth tour in Alaska last November, and he played three recitals on a 12-day Christmas–New Year Caribbean cruise from New York of Cunard’s ship QUEEN MARY 2

Concerts later this year will include recitals on four cruises  (April and November), performances in Britain, and his 22nd Australian tour (July through September), which has 25 concerts on it.

Concert Planning Committee

Dania Stachiw-Hietpas

Krystia Nora

Solomiya Kavyuk

Amy Mulhall

Viktoriia Senych

Julia Orlowski

Sara Andersen

Anya Nakonechna

Special Thanks

Thank you to Colectivo Coffee for their generous support of our cause. Colectivo has let us use today’s performance space and 20% of all Prospect café afternoon sales will go to Sunflowers of Peace. In addition, 100% of all sales of Blue & Yellow Heart specialty cookies, sold at Colectivo locations in Milwaukee, Madison, and Chicago, will also go to Sunflowers of Peace.

Thank you to Roman Rudnytsky, who drove here with his wife from Ohio to be our featured artist for this benefit concert.

Thank you to the children, artists, and organizers who quickly created this event.

Thank you to all of you attending – may we all stand up for Ukraine to help those hurt by this unprovoked war and to ultimately restore this beautiful country’s borders, peace, and freedom.

English Translations of Poems and Music

In order of performance

How Do You Love Ukraine

Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies

How do you love Ukraine, my young friend?

Our dear Ukraine, I love very much!

With Ukraine I don’t fear anyone in the world.

And every morning, I pray to God for her.

Praying that she will be very happy, very wealthy.

I love her so much, as I love my mother and father.

Translated by Solomiya Kavyuk

Little Ukrainian

Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies

I am a little Ukrainian – everyone needs to know this.

Ukrainian is my father,

Ukrainian is my mother.

I was born Ukrainian,

Ukrainian I will be.

About my dear Ukraine I will never forget.

Translated by Solomiya Kavyuk

Native Land

Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies

Beautiful, generous native land

And our nightingale language.

Love, appreciate, and protect

Everything that is called Ukraine.

Translated by Solomiya Kavyuk

Crane

Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies

From a faraway land,

From faraway worlds

A crane on his wings

Flew home,

He passed oceans,

Forests and seas,

And looked through the fog:

Whose land is this,

Whose valleys are these,

Whose meadows are these,

Whose guelder rose

Do the winds sway?

He recognized his motherland:

This is my land.

Because here is my nest and my language!

Translated by Solomiya Kavyuk

I am a Ukrainian Child

Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies

I am a Ukrainanin child,

Ukrainian heritage.

Ukrainian is the name

Of a proud kind.

Ukraine – is a glorious land,

All the way to the Black Sea,

Ukraine – is lush flax seed

And steppes and mountains.

How could I not love Ukraine immensely?
My mom taught me to speak in Ukrainian.

How could I not love Ukraine immensely?

I was taught to pray to God in Ukrainian.

For my native land and people

I pray to God:

Send, God, to Ukraine,

Both happiness and fate!

Translated by Solomiya Kavyuk

About Ukraine

Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies

I am holding in my hand,

Colored pencils.

I want to draw

The mountains of Crimea and Karpaty.

Steppes and hills of Dnipro,

And the lakes, and the oak groves,

And the rainbows, and the guelder roses,

The Black Sea and the Dunabe river –

All of this is our Ukraine,

Our lovely motherland!

Translated by Solomiya Kavyuk

Pray For Ukraine

Milwaukee School of Ukrainian Studies

I will lift to the sky

My wings – my hands

I will pray for my mom

I will pray for my dad

For my sister and brother

For all my family

And for my native motherland – Ukraine

Translated by Solomiya Kavyuk

Love Ukraine

Promin, Ukrainian pre-teen & teenager Dance Ensemble

Love your Ukraine, love as you would the sun,
The wind, the grasses, and the streams together…
Love her in happy hours, when joys are won,
And love her in her time of stormy weather.

Love her in happy dreams and when awake,
Ukraine in spring’s white cherry-blossom veil.
Her beauty is eternal for your sake;
Her speech is tender with the nightingale.

As in a garden of fraternal races,
She shines above the ages. Love Ukraine
With all your heart, and with exultant faces
Let all your deeds her majesty maintain.

For us she rides alone on history’s billows,
In the sweet charm of space she rules apart,
For she is in the stars, is in the willows,
And in each pulse-beat of her people’s heart,

In flowers and tiny birds, and lights that shine,
In every epic and in every song,
In a child’s smile, in maidens’ eyes divine,
And in the purple flags above the throng…

Youth! For her sake give your approving laughter,
Your tears, and all you are until you die…
For other races you’ll not love hereafter
Unless you love Ukraine and hold her high.

Young woman! As you would her sky of blue,
Love her each moment that your days remain.
Your sweetheart will not keep his love for you,
Unless he knows you also love Ukraine.

Love her in love, in labor, and in fight,
As if she were a song at heaven’s portal…
Love her with all your heart and all your might,
And with her glory we shall be immortal.

My Native Motherland

Promin, Ukrainian pre-teen & teenager Dance Ensemble

My native motherland

Is called Ukraine.

I have my own nation

I am my mother’s Ukrainian son

I have my own language,

Where every word is Ukrainian.

Prayer for Ukraine

St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Choir & St Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Choir

Lord, oh the Great and Almighty,
Protect our beloved Ukraine,
Bless her with freedom and light
Of your holy rays.

With learning and knowledge enlighten
Us, your children small,
In love pure and everlasting
Let us, oh Lord, grow.

We pray, oh Lord Almighty,
Protect our beloved Ukraine,
Grant our people and country
All your kindness and grace.

Bless us with freedom, bless us with wisdom,
Guide into kind world,
Bless us, oh Lord, with good fortune
Forever and ever more.

Embroidered Cloth (Rushnichok)

Zinoviy Migliaccio, bayan / Krystia Nora, mezzo-soprano

Oh, dear mother of mine, for nights you did not slumber

And you’d lead me into the fields

At the end of the village;

And you escorted me in the early morning to a distant road

And gave to me an embroidered cloth for luck.

And for the long road ahead you gave to me

An embroidered cloth for luck, for my destiny.

Let a dewy path blossom on it,

And the green meadows, and the nightingale groves.

And your true motherly sweet smile,

And your grieving blue eyes.

And your true motherly sweet smile,

And your grieving, sorrowful blue eyes.

I will take this cloth, and spread it, like destiny,

In a quiet rustling grass, in chirping deep leafy forests,

And on this cloth, everything will come alive again everything familiar even pain

And your childhood, and separation, and your motherly love.

Translated by Krystia Nora

Soldiers marched through the countryside

Zinoviy Butkovsky, bayan and voice

Soldiers marched through the countryside,

On the Ukrainian land, not free land.

And everyone had a weapon behind them,

And everyone has sadness and pain on his face.  (2)

Pain and sorrow for all of Ukraine,

nd for the burned houses and the cut down garden,

For that song you once heard, nightingale,

But they no longer had a way back.  (2)

Because the way back is slavery,

And we will not hide in the woods.

We will go forward – and gain freedom,

We are faithful sons of Ukraine.  (2)

One of them started a song, and it sounded

To all the mountains of the Carpathians, to the whole native land,

So that everyone knows – Ukraine has risen!

You fly, our song, beyond the horizon!  (2)

And not all will return from the battle alive,

And not everyone will have a family.

Remember them, remember them,

Always remember them, Ukrainian land.  (2)

Always remember them the way I remember.

Remember the hardships of the terrible war.

Because the day will come that to the native land

Your sons, Ukraine, will still fly.  (2)

At your mercy

Lesya Klimchenko, bandura& voice / Tatiana Magliaccio, violin / Anya Nakonechna, voice

At Your mercy

let’s run,

Virgin Mary.

Our prayers,

in grief,

are not proud.

From troubles

save us

Virgin Mary,

only Pure,

and Blessed.

Ukrainian Land

Roman Rudnytsky, piano / Krystia Nora, mezzo-soprano

Oh, you fields, Ukrainian lands,

There far away is a star, where my husband is at war.

People are saying he will come,

People are saying he will find you.

There are front lines and front lines.

Don’t be sad!

Take care of your daughter, like the windblown grass,

At night, in the evenings by the rustling trees.

Soldiers in the distance, where my husband is at war.

Beyond the rivers, one soldier by another.

I’ll ask some of them:

Perhaps my husband is among them?

Soldiers are walking and humming,

Maybe they saw him somewhere?

I will go out and call him from above,

Where the poplars are swishing,

Where the Ukrainian Land is burning with fires…

Translated by Krystia Nora

You Will Rise Again, Ukraine!

Roman Rudnytsky, piano / Krystia Nora, mezzo-soprano

An orchard in the spring, colorful flowers, songs of the birds up high,

You in glory with a necklace like sunshine and spring.

And in the sky is great joy and the vastness of the Ukrainian steppe like spread wings

My dear Ukraine, that is how you are in my eyes!

Nails have penetrated your hands. Your golden braids are unraveled in the wind.

In the black shy ravens, ravens, as you are crucified.

The fires have burned out in your eyes.

All around bayoneted rifles, bloody boots have trampled your necklace and flowers.

But there will come down a fiery blow.

The bayoneted rifles will crumble.

We will pick up your necklace, and your flowers will bloom again.

Echoes of songs will sound all around.

We will lift you from the cross and you will rise again, Ukraine,

My revered suffering one!

My revered suffering one!

Translated by Krystia Nora