Track 10 'Scherbyna's Kozachok' by Julian Kytasty from the 2001 album Black Sea Winds:The Kobzari of Ukraine.

Julian Kytasty is a New York-based musician/singer whose life revolves around the propagation of bandura art and Ukrainian music, including ancient dumy, the chant-like epic songs that describe events in the Kozak period of the 16th and 17th centuries. He has been playing his banduras (he owns eight different types) and his sopilka (wooden flute) for diverse audiences around the world for more than 25 years.

The bandura is a type of zither with 21 to 55 strings, played upright and plucked. It is a cross between a large lute and a Celtic harp and its sound resembles that of a harpsichord. Most Ukrainian traditional music includes the bandura, but during the Soviet occupation it fell into disfavour as the symbol of Ukrainian national culture and was rarely played in public.

He is one of a handful of musicians who dedicate themselves to reconstituting the lost tradition of the bandura and to reestablishing its stature as the Ukraine's primary musical instrument.

'Kobzari' were wandering folk bards who performed a large repertoire of epic-historical, religious and folk songs while playing the kobza, a forerunner of the bandura, the national instrument of Ukraine.

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