SHKLAR ALLA

Date and Place of Birth: August 8, 1948, Liege, Belgium

Date of Interview: May 29th, 2024

Place of Interview: Toronto

Interviewer: Oksana Kuryliw

Length of Interview: 30 min

(Excerpt):

Interviewer: Maestro Kolesnyk referenced before this segment, was the conductor of the Ukrainian Opera choir.

Alla: Unfortunately, he passed away in 1997, so after that, I carried on with the choir for another two years or so, and we performed the liturgy again – Valery Kikta’s* liturgy – and we hit all the churches with this liturgy, thirty six churches across Canada.

Interviewer: Wow, really, Alla

Alla: Yes, including Orthodox and Catholic, and the question would be always to talk to the svyashtenyky prior to giving the phone call. Are we allowed, or they always say, "Oh, I don't know, whatever.”  But because this was his music… you understand it, but it's a little bit… obviously it’s contemporary, and some of the things where the chords kind of go off, but then they resolve themselves. But it's a little different.  Do choho pryvykly.

So we did that, but we hit 35 churches, and we hit people afterwards, they were really listening. “Wow, this is what you can actually do in churches?”  You don't have to only do the old stuff. I mean, there are new things to do. So that was an accomplishment.

* A contemporary Ukrainian  composer who also wrote the “Sacred Dnipro” oratorio.