Ukrainian Christmas Concert Program
St. Robert Roman Catholic Church, Shorewood, WI
Opening and Prayer
St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Choir and St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Choir
Ukrainian National Anthem
Milwaukee Children’s Choir of St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church, Dyvotsvit:
Sing traditional Ukrainian folk songs:
Ліхтарики (Litaryky / Lanturns)
Ой хто хто Миколая любить (Oy khto khto Mykolaya lyubyt’ /Who, who loves St.
Nicholas?)
Дивоцвіт (Dyvotsvit / Miracle Blossom)
Kalyna Ukrainian Dance Group: Milwaukee’s youngest dancers
Promin Ukrainian Dance Group: Milwaukee’s preteen and teenage dancers
Motria Caudill & Tess Caudill, bandura and voice
Greensleeves Traditional English Folk Song
arr. Victor Mishalow
Во Вифлеємі Зоря Сіяє Traditional Ukrainian Christmas Carol
(Vo Vifleyemi Zorya Ciyaye / In Bethlehem the Star Shines) arr. Oleh Mahley
Motria Caudill & Tess Caudill, bandura / Judith Volovskek, bandura /
Krystia Nora, mezzo-soprano
Во Вифлеємі (Vo Vifleyemi / In Bethlehem) Traditional Ukrainian Christmas Carol
Duo Serenata (Irina Yanovska, guitar & Mikhael “Mischa” Litvin, mandolin & domra)
Largo from Concerto #4 (Winter) Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Щедрик (Shchedryk /Ukrainian Bell Carol) Mykola Leontovych (1877-1921) Kolomyika Ukrainian Traditional
Polka Marek Sokolovskiy (1818-1883)
Duo Serenata / Krystia Nora, mezzo-soprano
Добрий Вечір (Dobriy Vechir / Good Evening) Ukrainian Traditional Christmas Carol
Intermission
St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Choir / St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Choir
Бог Предвічнии (Boh predvichniy / God eternal) Ukrainian Traditional Christmas Carol
Ново Радість Стала (Novo Radist’ Stala / New Joy) Ukrainian Traditional Christmas Carol
Tatiana Migliaccio, violin & sopilka / Zenoviy Butkovsky, bayan
Спи Ісусе, Спи Traditional Ukrainian Christmas Carol
(Spy, Isyse, Spy / Sleep, Jesus, Sleep)
Небо і Земля (Nebo i Zemla / Heaven and Earth) Traditional Ukrainian Christmas Carol
Щедрик (Shchedryk /Ukrainian Bell Carol) Mykola Leontovych (1877-1921)
Tatiana Migliaccio, violin / Maria Foit, piano
Melody Myroslav Skoryk (1938 - 2020)
Roman Rudnytsky, piano
Tema con variazioni, from Sonata, op. 10 Antin Rudnytsky (1895 – 1964)
Mephisto Waltz Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886)
Roman Rudnytsky, piano / Tatiana Migliaccio, violin / Krystia Nora, mezzo soprano
Wisconsin Premier of the Vasyl Barvinsky (1888 – 1963) Christmas Song Cycle
Що то за Предиво (Shcho To Za Predivo / What a Wonder)
Ой Дивне Є (Oy Dyvne Ye / How Wondrous)
Church Choirs lead in Ukrainian; All join us in English
Свята Ніч (Svyata Nich / Silent Night) Franz Xaver Gruber (1787 – 1863)
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.
Motria Poshyvanyk Caudill and Tess "Tessia" Caudill: Motria is director of the Chicago School of Bandura and a founding member of the Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America. Her late father Alex Poszewanyk taught her and dozens of students in Chicago and Milwaukee in the 1980s as part of the ODUM Youth Bandura Ensemble. Her daughter Tessia has also been playing since a young age with a new generation of young bandurists in Chicago. Tessia has attended several Bandura summer camps over the years and also enjoys performing in her community musical theater.
Duo Serenata: With every Duo Serenata performance, audiences experience a truly international, musical adventure. Here are two classically trained, passionate musicians who left different parts of the former Soviet Union to express themselves on their own terms and share their music with everyone lucky enough to hear them play.
Mikhail “Misha” Litvin moved to Milwaukee from Minsk, the capital city of Belarus in 2000. He is a virtuoso on the domra and the mandolin. If you do not know either of those instruments yet, it is time to let Misha entertain you. While his home is in Milwaukee and since moving to Wisconsin, Misha has performed as a soloist with orchestras in cities across America, Europe, and Israel. His most popular repertoire selections include, but are not limited to Renaissance and Classical standards, folk and pop, klezmer, and traditional American mandolin orchestra music. Misha’s outstanding musicianship can be heard on recordings with bayan virtuoso Stas Venglevski and the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra. With Irina Yanovskaya on guitar, Misha was the mandolin-playing leader of the New Vintage Frets for their superb collection of historic American music – “the Wisconsin•Vega Project.”
Irina Yanovskaya moved to Milwaukee from the Ukraine in 1996. She came to America with degrees in Guitar Pedagogy and Guitar Performance. Combining active performance and teaching careers, Irina appeared as a soloist and chamber musician locally and abroad. A passionate educator Irina is a certified Suzuki instructor and currently teaches guitar at Suzuki & Pre-College Guitar Program at UWM and Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. She is a co-founder of the Milwaukee Classical Guitar Society and director of the society's orchestra. Her education, devotion to study, intelligence, interpretive abilities, and experience as a soloist have made Irina an exceptional guitar accompanist. Her work with Misha in Duo Serenata presents a surprising, emotional, and often incredible musical synergy.
Irina and Misha met only after he arrived in Milwaukee. Their common language, musical tastes, and mutual respect led to and keep advancing the evolution of their musical collaboration. Meeting the artists who have become Duo Serenata is a lucky encounter no one forgets.
Maria Foit, pianist, holds a Bachelor of Arts in Piano Pedagogy and Piano Accompaniment. Maria has studied the piano since a very young age by getting inspired by listening to her other sisters play music growing up. After she started to play and learn more and more she knew this is what she truly loved. Since then she has studied and graduated from Odessa National Music Academy in Ukraine. She has been able to travel to many other countries to share and pass on her experiences to other students. She hopes to influence and inspire her students to become versatile musicians and well-rounded individuals.
Nadiya Kavyuk is the director of the Ukrainian Children’s Choir, Dyvotsvit. The Ukrainian word, Dyvotsvit, translates to “miracle blossom”. In Ukraine, we say our children are our blooming flowers. But not just blooming flowers, they’re miracles that will blossom and carry on our traditions. The motto for Dyvotsvit is, wherever you are, you must bloom. We love and respect the United States as our home, but Ukraine will always be in our hearts. Ukraine is where our roots are.
Iryna Levit was born in Kharkiv Ukraine. Iryna finished Kharkiv Choreography School and then attended Kharkiv National University, where she started to work as a fitness coach. After completing her master’s degree in Sociology, she started to teach at the Kharkiv Academy of Culture and at the same time opened her fitness studio for children and adult groups. After she moved to Milwaukee, she stayed at home with her children for some years before restarting her career as a choreographer, gymnastics, and dance instructor at Infinite Gymnastics for seven years. Then she worked for five years at the Russian school Erudit until the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine in 2014, when she began to study photography. She now is a photographer and the director of the Milwaukee Ukrainian children’s dance groups Kalyna and Promin.
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, a Ukrainian flute and bayan player, she has performed various Ukrainian classical and folk pieces throughout the region.
Krystia Nora, singer and poet. In 2003, under the name Krystia Hancher, her CD Ukrainian Dreams co-featured pianist Roman Rudnytsky and was published by Yevshan. This album showcases the repertoire of early 1940s Lviv radio and opera star Olha Sushko (Krystia’s grandmother) and is the only recording of the Vasyl Barvinsky Christmas song cycle featuring violin, piano, and voice. She also writes poetry and was recently published in Ukrainian American Poets Respond, in several volumes of Voices from the Attic, and the poem “The Body Remembers” was published in the Milwaukee Independent on 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). 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, director of the St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir, 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.
Roman Rudnytsky, a 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 a prizewinner of ten international and national piano competitions, has played as a soloist with many orchestras around the world, played many concerts through US Embassies in 50 countries (with repeat visits to many), and has played recitals on about 70 cruises of P&O and Cunard ships.
In addition to his performing activities, Roman Rudnytsky was for many years a university professor of piano and music, mostly at Youngstown (OH) State University—Dana School of Music---where he received a Distinguished Professor Award. After retiring from there in 2011, he was awarded the title
Professor Emeritus. 2023 concerts included domestic performances and concerts on the islands of Guam and Saipan, his 14thNew Zealand tour, his 7th Alaskan tour, and his 23rd Australian tour, as well as recitals on two cruises of Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. 2024 concerts will include performances on Guam and Saipan again, in New Zealand, Chile (11 th tour), Britain, in the USA, and on five cruises.
Judith Volovsek, a Milwaukee folk musician, has been playing Slavic folk music on several instruments in several groups since high school. She started the bandura before statehood when Alex Pozewanyk came to Milwaukee to teach a group of bandurists at St. Michaels. She has been involved in Ukrainian folk music ever since. She is very happy to contribute help to Ukraine at this time; it is of special concern to keep the culture alive. She has played at the Milwaukee Folk Fair for many years and with other bandurists at church functions and picnics.
Concert Planning Committee
Krystia Nora
Tatiana Migliaccio
Halyna Salapata
Karina Tweedel
Special Thanks
Thank you to St. Robert Roman Catholic Church for your support and offering us this beautiful space to perform.
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 Wisconsin Ukrainians, the Ukrainians of Milwaukee, and Revived Soldiers Ukraine for all you do for Ukraine.
Thank you to the children, artists, and organizers who 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.
