УКРАЇНСЬКА ПІАНІСТКА ТАЇСА БОГДАНСЬКА ЗІ США: КОНЦЕРТНО-ВИКОНАВСЬКА ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ

Abstract

The article analyzes the concert and stage work of a Ukrainian pianist, pedagogue, musicologist and public figure, a director of Ukrainian Music Institute of America – Tayisa Bohdanska. She started her music education in Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk) with Tetyana Lepka, later in the Lysenko Higher Institute of Music in Lviv where she tought by the famous pianist-teacher, Vasyl Barvinskiy’s student – Roman Savytskiy. After leaving Lviv in 1944, she continued her studies at the Vienna Conservatory in the class of prof. A. Korolkov-Karalis, Roman Raupenshtrauch and Ravsan Strauss. Starting from 1952, she moved to the United States and found a job as a piano teacher at the Ukrainian Music Institute of America in New York, where she continues to work in the field of serving and promoting Ukrainian piano art in the world. She has performed in big US cities, such as: Newark, Philadelphia, New York, Miami, Rochester, Grand Cayman and Virgin Islands, Toronto (Canada), Curacao (Japan), Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Drohobych (Ukraine), engaged in recording business, published articles on Ukrainian performers and composers. The article reveals her pianistic performing skill is characterized by a temperamental, fiery playing, based on her proficiency in chord-octave and finger-shining technique, while achieving a commonality of melody, careful phrase design and a clear articulation of small passages in a fast-paced tempo, the pianist has a unique way of sound extraction, with a soft finger stroke, which causes the middle register of the instrument to sound like a cello with a baritone hue. T. Bohdanska’s work in the conditions of emigration served to develop Ukrainian music and spirituality. In April 2017, a solemn concert took place honoring the artist and on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of her birth, where one could hear words of gratitude to this wonderful person, specialist, pedagogue, musicologist, and “the bright professor” as she is called in music and institute circles. Her artistic figure should serve as an example of creative dedicated work for the present and future generations of talented youth - performing pianists and educators.