Ukrainian culture celebrated

COLEBROOK —  The seventh annual Bandura at Bobriwka event took place at Bobriwka Resort in Colebrook on Saturday, July 1. 

Participants and instructors from all over the country came together to perform songs they have learned during a weeklong workshop at the resort. Those who attended got to hear over 70 people play the bandura, a Ukrainian instrument with 55 strings.

“My group has members from all over the United States,” said Bobriwka instructor Olya Fryz, “including Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, all the way out to Wyoming.”

 Fryz introduced the evening’s acts on July 1, including a group of young girls called the “Musical Mermaids.” 

“We have people from New York, New Jersey and Columbus, Ohio,” Fryz said. “Every group had to come up with their own names.”

During the concert, seven children’s groups played ahead of a men’s ensemble and a women’s ensemble. They played various musical selections including “Beetle on the Road,” “Minuet” by J.S. Bach and “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel.

“My friends and I grew up going to camps like this in Detroit and Pennsylvania and Canada,” said event organizer Irene Zuzma. “Once our kids got bigger, we decided that we have to get together and do this. The Kebalo brothers said to us, come on up here and give it a try.” 

The Kebalo family is one of several who come together in working to maintain the property at Bobriwka, providing places to work and cabins and campers to sleep in. 

“We did a trial run with 12 kids in 2010. The next time we had  24 kids in 2011, which was our first official event,” Zuzma said during the performance on July 1. “All the moms who weren’t teaching and all the dads who weren’t teaching were working in the kitchen, so we started calling it a ‘family reunion,’ because the parents were here, and the kids were here and it was great. It’s a family reunion, but the family keeps expanding. So now, instead of five people in the kitchen, we have 12 to 15.”

Zuzma said she had friends and family from Chicago that she taught with and friends from Detroit who used to teach her as a child attending Bobriwka this year with their own children. 

“We’re just making this wonderful thing,” she said. “The guests and relatives that come up here from all over the state and country have heard that it’s a great thing to come and see.”

Children who attend the weeklong program at Bobriwka Resort can expect to study the bandura every day. The property also has a lake for them to visit and plenty of space where they play volleyball and soccer. 

“This is about as big as we are going to get because these kids are going to want to keep coming back because they have lifelong friendships now,” Zuzma said. “They have groups together and they are challenging themselves to get into the next group up. We have different groups at different levels and it’s also opportunity for the teenagers and the slightly older kids to try conducting and leading groups.” 

At the end of the evening, a collected ensemble of everyone involved in the program played four numbers together, including some by Bobriwka instructors.