At Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University was held a unique event - “The armed man: a mass for peace” by a famous English composer Karl Jenkins was performed. A mass was performed by the youth choir of the university, consisting of students and lecturers of Department of Arts, in particular, Musicology, Vocal and Choir Disciplines Chair and Instrumental Performance Chair.
The author of the idea, art director and conductor was a lecturer at Musicology, Vocal and Choir Disciplines Chair Oksana Prokulevych. Owing to her enthusiasm, persistence and industry together performed soloists (solo soprano was performed by Ilona Melnyck), mixed choir group and orchestra group Elena Vasich (flute), Yaroslav Yashan (first tube-solo), Volodymyr Dyshlevych (second tube), Vladyslav Ivanov (percussion), Katarina Bogevych and Boyan Vasich (bayan), Iryna Boyko (piano). The members of the choir under guidance of Oksana Prokulevych transferred deepness of the piece, its urgent problems and mood.
In his welcoming speech, assistant professor of Musicology, Vocal and Choir Disciplines Chair, Honorary Worker of Culture of Ukraine Petro Voloshyn informed the audience about Karl Jenkins – one of the most famous contemporary British composers. In the beginning of his career Karl Jenkins was famous as a jazz and rock-jazz musician. He was a co-founder of rock-jazz band Nucleus and a member of Soft Machine. The composer wrote a lot of music to TV ads. The most famous is a piece that is included to the collection “Diamond music”, on basis of which was created a famous instrumental composition “Palladino”. He won his spurs owing to his project “Adiemus”, which he played on tour in Japan, Germany, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and London Albert hall.
“A mass for peace” is the most famous and amazing composition by Karl Jenkins – a famous representative of World music avant-garde. The first night of the composition was held in Royal Albert Hall on the 25th of April, 2000. The mass is dedicated to military conflict in Kosovo and was written in order to draw attention of the youth to problems of war in contemporary world. Nowadays this problem is especially close to Ukrainians and the composition has a symbolic meaning for us. Feelings of tragedy during war and spiritual upheaval were followed by videos. Montage of the video was prepared by Vitaliy Mykhailenko.
In the mass are embodied the following urgent social and ethnic problems: death and life, good and evil, war and peace, mutual openness of world cultures and its values.
The composer managed to combine in his work different national cultures: Jenkins used an ancient French song “L’Homme Arme” (“Armed Man”), fragments from an ancient Indian epos “Mahabharatam”, poems by English poets and writers Rudyard Kipling, John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Malory, Alfred Tennyson, etc. “A mass of Peace” ends with words of Ioann Theologian, “The God will wipe tears from their face, and there will be no death anymore; no cries, no diseases, as the past is in the past…”
In the end of the performance, the words of gratitude for a unique attempt of such a project realization expressed acting dean of the Department of Arts, Honorary Worker of Culture of Ukraine Leonid Yatlo and head of Musicology, Vocal and Choir Disciplines Chair, Honorary Worker of Culture of Ukraine Vasyl Semenchuk.
World famous work by Jenkins was performed by the youth choir of Pavlo Tychyna USPU, which was performed at P. Demutsky Uman regional musical school, A. Nezhdanova Odesa National Musical Academy, at our university and we hope that it will be performed at the other stages of our city and country.
