‘Bandura Jazz’ – A New Generation of Ukrainian Music

In a dimly lit jazz hall, a young Ukrainian musician is strumming and plucking the strings of an instrument half her size alongside a jazz band.

Her name is Anna Solovei, and the instrument she’s playing is a bandura, a traditional Ukrainian folk instrument that is intertwined with the development of Ukrainian identity.

“This instrument was created in Ukraine, it’s Ukraine’s soul,” she tells Kyiv Post.

A fresh generation of Ukrainian artists continues to explore the infinite possibilities of music. And jazz, a genre that aims to go beyond the established norms, provides musicians eager to experiment, like classically trained Solovei, an ideal platform for exploration.

“During the last two years of studying at a music school, I started playing the piano and became interested in harmonies that went beyond the classical ones,” she tells Kyiv Post.

Bandura and its Ukrainian roots

The bandura is a Ukrainian string instrument commonly associated with Ukraine’s Cossack heritage. A combination of lute and zither, it developed on the basis of the kobza, another Ukrainian string instrument resembling a lute and producing a tone similar to that of a harp.

The number of strings on a bandura differs based on the variant. It sports anywhere between 20 and 65 strings and covers four to five octaves, placing it between an ordinary six-string guitar (four octaves) and a standard 88-key piano (seven octaves).

Traditionally, the instrument was played by kobzars – blind, wandering musicians among the Cossacks (usually blinded while in Turkish captivity) who made a living playing music accompanied by epic stories and songs. But as time went by, classical musicians in Ukraine, who were trained in Europe in the 19th century, also began to embrace the instrument and brought about its revival.

Depiction of lute-like instruments can be found on paintings dating back to the times of Kyivan Rus, the ancestral kingdom of today’s Ukraine, in the 11th century, though it is unclear when exactly the bandura emerged as an instrument of its own.

By the early 20th century, as Ukraine’s independence movement spread, there were well-documented instances when bandura was taught as a specialty in higher institutions. Gradually it became a symbol of Ukrainian national identity.

But it’s also that connection with Ukrainian identity that led to widespread persecutions against bandura and kobza players under the Soviet regime, where numerous musicians died or disappeared.

Legend also has it that in 1932 or 1933, a congress in Kharkiv rallied bandura and kobza players from across Ukraine to supposedly collect and record their songs and stories. After they arrived, they were led outside the hall and executed.

Solovei and bandura in independent Ukraine

Solovei was born in independent Ukraine. Her connection with the bandura began when she was in school.

“I chose my profession when I was eight years old. While we were sitting in class, a lesson was going on. There was a knock on our door, and we were offered to play the bandura,” she says.

“An ensemble of bandura players and their teacher came in. Then I saw this instrument for the first time.”

She was enthralled by the synchronized movement of the hands – “the way the girls plucked the strings,” she said – and by the sound and appearance of the bandura.

“I was one of the last to raise my hand to be added to the list of those wishing to learn how to play an instrument. Back then, I still went to dances and drawing, but over time these [hobbies] disappeared, and music remained,” she recalls.

Solovei studied bandura extensively in music school, where she said she “played at all possible competitions as a soloist, in an ensemble and bandurists’ band,” and knew for certain that she would pursue studying music.

But during her formative years, she also got to experience other forms of music.

“During the last two years of studying at a music school, I started playing the piano and became interested in harmonies that went beyond the classical ones,” she said.

‘Accidentally tricking’ her parents into studying a second degree

Despite being classically trained on the bandura, Solovei said she decided to pursue a second degree in jazz piano as well. It was this experience that led to her pursuit of incorporating bandura into jazz.

“After the ninth grade in 2018, I entered the Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music named after R.M. Gliera on the bandura and accidentally tricked my parents into an adventure in the form of a second degree, so I studied jazz piano at the same time,” said Solovei.

“From that moment, I began to embody the idea of ‘bandura in jazz.’ I still have a lot to learn, and bandura is technically difficult for this musical genre, but I am inclined towards jazz,” she added.

During her studies, she met other likeminded students who were also eager to experiment and took a particular liking to jazz, and a new community was born.

The Fusion community

“Students and graduates of various departments have always been involved in all the most famous jazz events,” Solovei says.

She recounts how the Fusion community was born – a group of young Ukrainian musicians coming together to jam in different styles. Jazz, hip-hop, funk, you name it.

“They held jams in groovy styles, mostly a combination of jazz and hip-hop, wherever jazz lovers went,” she adds.

A YouTube video records of one of their jam sessions in Kyiv’s hip Podil district, uploaded by Solovei. She was the bandura player at the center of the stage. She also frequently uploads her work and performance to Instagram.

“I attended these jams with great enthusiasm and dreamed of one day being among musicians with my unique and unusual instrument,” she says.

“A year later, I signed up for this jam (they have a pre-selection of musicians). Since then, I started participating in these jams, and the community has developed and has many forms of events and created a label – No Time For Swing,”

In 2023, No Time For Swing released their album, created during Russia’s full-scale invasion. The album features tracks based on traditional Ukrainian folk songs, and a few musicians released a video (English subtitles available) that detailed the inspiration and creative process.

Within the Fusion community, Solovei is the only bandura player.

“I think there are fewer bandurists compared to other instruments (if we talk about the activity of a bandurist as an artist/working musician),” she explains.

However, Solovei said her alma mater in Chernihiv actually had more bandura players than pianists since it has a bandura department separate from the folk music department – the only such case in Ukraine, she says. But unlike her, most classical musicians have a predictable career.

“Now there are enough of us in educational institutions, the question is what happens next. We have a conservative education, and after it, almost no one thinks about going another way, everyone chooses the same path, especially bandura,” she says. 

But Solovei doesn’t believe she needs to play Ukrainian music as a bandura player to prove that she’s Ukrainian.

“I like that I can create completely different music, I don’t need to play Ukrainian songs so that people guess that I’m Ukrainian.

“Holding a bandura in my hands, I don’t need to shout that I’m Ukrainian, because it’s obvious, this instrument was created in Ukraine, it’s the soul of Ukraine,” she said.