CONCERT The Bug River Polesia – Songs Revived
The concert is devoted to the music culture of the border region between Włodawa and Kodeń – the Polish part of Polesia, a region stretching far East into today’s Ukraine and Belarus. The Western or Lublin Polesia, located in the Bug river valley, is a region with complex pre and postwar history that led to the weakening of both the local dialects and its singing traditions.
More and more songs from this culturally unique region now exist only in archives, in old fieldwork records. Very few people remain who remember them from family tradition and can pass them on. One of them is Karolina Jadwiga Demianiuk from Dołhobrody – a local singer and an important custodian of the region’s repertoire.
The concert will feature songs that Ms Demianiuk remembers from her childhood and has been passing on to younger generations for many years, as well as songs found in archives – including the Jan Ignaciuk archive deposited at the Lublin Open-Air Museum and the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University collections – and the pieces rediscovered during contemporary field research that the enthusiasts of the local music conduct among the eldest inhabitants of the region.
The songs performed come from before the Second World War and from the early 1950s. They create a colorful image of the music culture of the borderlands – the are sung in the local variation of the dialects from South Polesia, which some call the Ukrainian dialect, others the Chachłacki language, or just the “local” speech.
Meeting on the stage will be various generations of performers. The esteemed elder Karolina Jadwiga Demianiuk will be accompanied by her young students from Hanna, the Jarzębina band from Zabłocie, and the continuators of the local tradition from all corners of the country – bands Obłoka, Polesie_PL, Dziki Bez, and the Zaświatycze duo. Apart from singing, there will be instrumental music performed by the string ensemble Poleski Skład Smyczkowy. The concert will be hosted by the Z Lasu band which has been exploring the songs from all over Polesie for over 20 years.
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