Virtuoso violinist bringing concerts in aid of Ukraine to Hamilton
Vasyl Popadiuk promises a program of stirring, eclectic music
In the past two months, the world has become crushingly unrecognizable to Vasyl Popadiuk, who short years ago helped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s election campaign. Yet, in some ways it remains sadly familiar: The beleaguered history of the Ukrainian people, their dangerous proximity to sometimes deeply problematic Russian regimes. But in his lifetime, there hasn’t been anything like what’s happening now.
Popadiuk is a man, a musician, built for joy.
You can see it in his face. He is ready with a joke or a droll observation and his smile, framed by his long hair, is a broad and giving one, his handsome face animated with the excitement of the moment he finds himself in — in the present case, talking about his music and the concert tour he is about to launch in Hamilton.
He will perform here on May 8 at the Zoetic Performing Arts Theatre.
His music performances too, though they include much serious classical fare (as well as jazz, Romani and even pop/rock), are usually leavened with humour. Popadiuk plays 15 instruments, many of them, like the piano and violin, at virtuoso levels, and so when he comes on stage, he sometimes simulates, with levity, one instrument after the other, the feel of a whole band or orchestra by himself.
These days, he says, a more sombre chord is struck. It is a time, he says, for sad adagios.
“We wake up to the news,” he says, of those like him with family in Ukraine. “We got to sleep with the news. If we can sleep.”
Popadiuk, grew up in Kyiv when Ukraine was part of the former Soviet Union. He served, as I imagine most young men had to, in the Soviet army. But word of his talent preceded him into his uniform and he played with the army orchestra rather than join a combat unit.
Don’t get the wrong idea, though. The musicians would often play at or close to the front lines.
“I’ve played with war going on around us in Afghanistan, Chechnya,” says Popadiuk. He even played in Chernobyl.
He was recognized as gifted from a young age. At seven, he studied at Kyiv’s Lysenko school for gifted children, moving on to Ukraine’s National Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Music from age 18. Vasyl Popadiuk’s father, himself a renowned composer and has a street named after him over there.
Popadiuk has played with Ukraine’s Hopak National Ensemble, Kiev’s Gypsy Music Theatre Company, and the Nazarov Music Theatre Company of Moscow with whom he performed for many international dignitaries including the late King Hussein of Jordan. He was asked to accompany Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife as part of the cultural entourage during a state visit to Spain where he performed for Queen Sofia.
He performed with a Soviet orchestra at the Calgary Olympics in 1988.
Popadiuk, who lives in Ottawa, immigrated to Canada in 1993 and since has played all over North America and Europe, including Ukraine, often with his group, The Papa Duke Band.
“I first met Volodymyr Zelenskyy in entertainment shows in Ukraine (before Zelenskyy was elected president),” says Popadiuk. “We became friends, and then I performed (music) as part of his election campaign.”
Popadiuk, whose mother and brother are still in Ukraine, is also friends with Kyiv mayor and former WBC heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko.
“It is amazing — everyone there (in Ukraine) wants to stay and fight,” says Popadiuk.
His tour of concert dates will raise funds for and awareness of the cause of somehow alleviating the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, especially as it affects the children and the hospitals there.
Popadiuk will perform two concerts in Hamilton at the Zoetic Performing Arts Theatre, 526 Concession St., on Sunday, May 8, one at 3 p.m. and one at 7 p.m. Tickets are $50.
Net proceeds to the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation.
For more information and tickets, visit thezoetic.ca/ events.