Friends Who Pray Together, Stay Together

Reflections on the 20th anniversary of the St. Nicholas Church Choir

By Nestor Gula

For any organization to last 20 years is a feat in itself.  For a church choir, which was started by a diverse group of students, surviving for two decades is nearly miraculous.

The impetus to establish a choir came from two conductors, Roman Hurko and Taras Kovalchuk. The choir was based at the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church in downtown Toronto and first sang in the spring of 1985. The two conductors met at a master class in conducting taught by the late Volodymyr Kolesnyk at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.

The group that started singing originally was small but enthusiastic. In those early days there was a lot happening in Toronto and most of the choir’s core membership was also heavily involved with the Avant-Garde Ukrainian Theatre and the band Vapniaky Pid Holym Nebom. Also essential to the choir’s sound was the presence of a large number of members who had recently settled in Toronto after fleeing from Poland prior to the fall of the Warsaw Pact.

The strength of the choir, which was dubbed the “Youth” choir, was that it was consistently able to attract new voices and musical talent. This was most evident when hearing the choir's fresh approach to singing the traditional Ukrainian liturgy. Another strength was the choir’s conductors; they all had great musical talent and the patience for dealing with what frequently amounted to a ragtag bunch of choir members who all had their own concepts of the choir and of singing.

Although Kovalchuk left after about a year, the choir continued with Hurko as the principal conductor. Not only was he able to corral the choir into a great-sounding entity, he contributed to the choir’s repertoire by composing music to several liturgical hymns. The first of Hurko’s compositions that was premiered by the choir during a service at St. Nicholas Church was his music to “Our Father.” He subsequently penned a “It is Worthy to Glorify Thee, Mother of God” and a number of others that became the nucleus of a complete Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

Hurko’s professional life, stage managing operas and other shows, started to interfere with his duties as choirmaster. His shoes were aptly filled by Adrian Ivakhiv who was also a student of Maestro Kolesnyk. He debuted as a conductor in 1987. He also took it upon himself to compose a few liturgical works — “Credo,” “Holy God, Holy and Mighty,” “Hallelujah,” and a Eucharistic cycle, namely “It is Worthy and Virtuous to Praise Thee,” “Holy, Holy, the Lord Sabaot,” and “We Glorify Thee in Song.” All these works were premiered during the St. Nicholas parish’s Sunday celebrations of the Divine Liturgy. They are all still part of the choir’s repertoire, as are Hurko’s works, and can still be heard on the Sundays when the choir sings.

In 1988, the Rev. Evtymij Volynskyj, of the Studite Monastery in Woodstock, Ontario, invited the ensemble to participate in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Egypt to mark the millennium of the adoption of Christianity in Ukraine. That year, the choir also performed in Maple Leaf Gardens, as part of the Toronto Ukrainian community's celebrations of the aforementioned millennium. The choir was also able to sing the Divine Liturgy at various churches in Cleveland, Detroit, Ottawa, and Montreal among others. This happened in conjunction with performances of the Avant-Garde Ukrainian Theatre.

However, the following year the choir fell on hard times as Ivakhiv was no longer able to conduct regularly. Two interim conductors, Renata Duma and Artem Pankevych, tried to hold the choir together for two years.

Upon the return of Ivakhiv to the podium in 1991, the choir found new focus and really hit its stride. Some fresh voices, from Ukraine, Poland and Canada, joined the choir, and a solid group of about 30 members, could be counted on to sing every Sunday. Many of the choir members benefited from classes in vocal technique from the renowned soprano Roxolana Roslak.

In August 1992, the choir took part in a momentous event — the transfer and reburial of the late Ukrainian Catholic Patriarch Josyf Slipyj from Rome to Lviv. Thanks once again to Rev. Volynskyj and the support of the parish, the ensemble bore witness to history and the triumphal return of the relics of a saint to a newly independent Ukraine. The choir sang the Divine Liturgy at St. Sophia’s in Rome and at St. Yuri’s in Lviv for the formal part of the reburial ceremony.

In 1993 and 1994, the choir had two recording sessions at the church, and a CD, titled “Blessed,” was finally released in 2002 to coincide with the St. Nicholas Parish's Golden Jubilee celebrations.

In September 2000, Maestro Hurko returned to his founding role of principal conductor, and in recognition of its longevity, the choir was designated as the official parish choir. In 2004 both Hurko and Ivakhiv were unavailable to perform duties as conductors. A young immigrant from Ukraine, Zhanna Zinchenko, ably stepped in to their shoes and is now conducting the choir.

-With files from Andrij Wynnyckyj

Nestor Gula is a Toronto-based writer and editor and a member of the St. Nicholas Church Choir.

A 20th Anniversary Lunch is being held by the choir at St. Nicholas Church  in Toronto on January 29.  For tickets, call (416) 242-9631.