VOLODYMYR ZVARUN’S СONDUCTING WORK (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE MALE CHOIR «CHERVONA KALYNA»)

Abstract

Ukrainian researchers frequently investigate the work of professional choirs, paying almost no attention to amateur ones – the centers creating musical environment at the local level. As a rule, such collectives are conducted by professional conductors, graduates from music academies, enthusiasts, masters of their work, who do not work for financial reward, but they work to develop the national choral art, and to involve talented singers in singing. The figure of V. Zvarun, who devoted more than 70 years to his favourite activity – work with Ivano-Frankivsk choirs, stands out among the passionate personalities who have contributed to the development of the choral life in the Carpathian region.

The artist’s long creative life was closely connected with various choirs of the city as well as the region. If we take into consideration the fact that homogeneous male collectives are a rare phenomenonon on the choral map of Ukraine, it is very important to pay special attention to them. «Chervona Kalyna» is one of the few male choirs that has a long history and is probably the only semiprofessional collective of such a kind in the Carpathian region.

The relevance of the article consists in the necessity to describe the creative path of the choir «Chervona Kalyna» and its conductor, who made a significant contribution to the development and evolution of the cultural life of the Carpathian region. Due to the fact that the choir occupied its niche in the musical movement of the region, significantly contributed to its revival, became one of the leading choirs in the cohort of professional and amateur collectives of the Carpathian region, it is necessary and equally relevant to analyze its creative work. However, no choir is able to work during rehearsals or on concert venues without a conductor and, therefore, it is vital to characterize the creative work of some personalities, such as V. Zvarun in particular.

The main objective of the article is to reveal V. Zvarun’s talent through the prism of his conducting practice with the choir «Chervona Kalyna».

Methodology is related to the analysis methods of V. Zvaryn’s conducting work and the systematization of the concerts given by his collectives, it enables us to demonstrate the importance of the choirmaster’s major impact.

The article analyzes the long creative activity of the famous Carpathian conductor, teacher-methodologist, Methodologist at the Chair of the Methodics of Music Education and Conducting at V. Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, Honored Artist of Ukraine V. Zvarun. The artist’s conducting postulates were found out, his work with various creative collectives was described, special focus was made on the professional development of the amateur choir «Chervona Kalyna», its repertoire, concert life, touring were characterized, and it is the scientific novelty of the article as this choir and its conductor were not previously investigated in other researches.

The results of the study were achieved owing to the author’s interview with V. Zvarun, the investigation of concert programmes provided by the conductor from the artist’s personal archive, analysis of newspapers reviews from the local periodicals.

Conclusions. The musician’s work is a great responsibility to a society which accumulates energy and tempers the conductor’s character. V. Zvarun is an enthusiast of choral work who lived and worked for art’s sake, and the successful creative work of the collectives conducted by the maestro (there were 21 choirs in total) prove this fact. The most popular one was the amateur choir «Chervona Kalyna», which gave over a hundred concerts during its activity, becoming a part of history not only in Ivano-Frankivsk, Carpathian region, but also in the Ukrainian society in general.