Bandurists and Choirs from Bradford and Keighley

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Yorkshire Film Archive
The Yorkshire Film Archive at York St John University save and celebrate screen heritage made in or about Yorkshire. They connect broad and diverse audiences to their cultural and socially significant collection that reflects the life, landscape, and identity of the people of the region since the 1890s. Together with their sister archive in the North East they form the Yorkshire and North East Film Archive, a unique pan-regional resource with over 75,000 moving image artefacts. They unlock the collections for artists, academics, curators, programmers, researchers, and producers to reveal compelling stories from the vaults. www.yfanefa.com

Bandurists and Choirs from Bradford and Keighley

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Bandura performances in Bradford highlight another dimension of Ukrainians love of music performance.

Music and performing arts are a thread running through Bradford Ukrainian community's cultural life. The arrival from Scotland of the conductor Jaroslaw Havyliuk saw the formation of the Dibrova choir and a junior string orchestra (initially mandolins, with guitars added later).

The tradition of playing stringed instruments was revived by Vera Tymchyshyn, a classically trained musician and conductor. After graduating from music college in Ukraine, Vera sang and played in a bandura ensemble professionally before moving to the UK in 1991. She established the bandura Capella in the early 1990s and it ran for around ten years. Vera continues to be very active in the Ukrainian community and works as a teacher and a qualified interpreter.

This film documents the work of Vera Tymchyshyn, conductor of a Bandura Cappella based in Bradford. It captures the musicians in rehearsal and performance with the Dibrova choir from Bradford.

The film begins with a photograph of the Dibrova choir and Bandurists (taken in Bradford Ukrainian Catholic Church) and is captioned Dibrova and Bandurists in Ukrainian. Dibrova choir and bandurists, all dressed in embroidered shirts and blouses (vyshyvanky) perform in Bradford Ukrainian Catholic Church. They stand in front of the iconostasis with the bandurists seated in front. Dibrova's members are predominantly second-generation Ukrainian men and women, and the bandura cappella are a mix of second- and third-generation men and women. Their conductor, Vera Tymchyshyn, stands in the pews to conduct.

The video fades out to show Vera tuning a bandura in the school hall at Bradford Ukrainian Club, whilst her students sit on chairs waiting for the class to begin. The video continues with a snapshot of the bandura class.


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From the collection

Bradford Ukrainian Community Life

The largest and most active Ukrainian community in the UK diaspora thrives in Bradford.
Ukrainians have lived in Bradford since the end of the Second World War. The community was established by displaced Ukrainian men and women who came to the UK as displaced people from camps in West Germany and Austria under Westward Ho!, the European Volunteer Workers (EVWs) scheme. In Bradford, EVWs were placed into jobs in the textile industry to fill labour shortages and were initially housed in hostels and private rented accommodation. They were joined by members of the Ukrainian Army Division who came to the UK from camps in Italy. These early settlers founded the Bradford branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB) in 1947, established other community organisations and worshipped in both the Ukrainian Greek Catholic (Uniate) and Orthodox faiths. This collection is a snapshot of the Ukrainian community which settled in Bradford and continues to be one of the largest and most active in the UK's Ukrainian diaspora.

10 videos in this collection

1

Community Meeting re. Independence Referendum Ukraine

2

Commemoration of Ukrainian Heroines

3

Interview with Ostap Buriak, Choreographer

4

Easter Basket Blessing by Father Hutornyj

5

Building of the New Ukrainian School at Westfield

6

Kolos Bakery's 25th Anniversary

7

10th Anniversary of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

8

50th Anniversary AUGB in Bradford

9

50th Anniversary of Ukrainian Youth Association

10

Bandurists and Choirs from Bradford and Keighley

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