Kyiv Bandurist Capella

The group was initially known as the Kobzar Choir and was established in August 1918 under the direction of the renowned bandurist virtuoso Vasyl Yemetz, having its first performance in November that year.

The idea of organizing a bandura ensemble came to V. Yemetz after seeing a performance by four kobzars in Okhtyrka: Ivan Kuchuhura Kucherenko, Pavlo Hashchenko, Petro Drevchenko and Oleksander Hamaliya on 20 August 1911.

In May 1918, he placed advertisements in the Kyiv newspapers Vidrodzhennia, Robitnycha hazeta and Narodna volia asking for interested persons to approach him with the intent of organizing a kobzar ensemble.

This also proved problematic because none of the bandurists had the money to pay the rent required for a concert hall in Kyiv.

The program given by Yemetz for the first concert included the following pieces: "Kozatskiy Pokhid (Hey nu khloptsi do zbroyi)" and "Vyklyk" are still played by many bandurists in North America although the pieces are often ascribed to bandurist Mykhailo Teliha, a Kuban Cossack and a member of this initial Kobzar Choir.

The music section of the Directive of Culture and Art of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine commissioned a project to fund the chorus, open a bandura school, a hostel for blind kobzars, a workshop for the manufacture of banduras, and the formation of a kobzar museum.

Yemetz travelled to Prague where he established a bandura school and a second bandurist chorus in 1923 which initially received excellent reviews in the Soviet Ukrainian music magazines in 1925.

[1] The fate of the participants of the first Kyiv Kobzar Choir does not seem to be a very happy one: The only one that survived and did not die a violent death was director Vasyl Yemetz (1891–1982), who emigrated from Ukraine, moved to Prague and then settled in the United States.