To get into GMW you need to apply around March and then you have two options – either you will be offered a scholarship or you will have to pay tuition. In any case, the costs of flight, accommodation and meals remain with you, and of course, the visa. I was lucky to receive a scholarship and did not have to pay for education, but I still needed to find about 3,000 USD. In addition, I had to get an American visa, which in my case was very difficult to obtain, because during the war the US embassy in Ukraine is closed and I had to go to neighbouring countries.
If it wasn’t for the support of the North American bandurist community and my good friend and mentor Yuliyan Kitasty, I wouldn’t have been able to get into this program at all, they supported all my expenses except tuition for the course.

This year bandura and Ukrainian traditional songs were presented for the first time at GMW, and I asked myself why. There are so many bandura players among Ukrainian immigrants in North America, while there are many talented musicians in Ukraine – why are they not here, though we have such a rich folk tradition to share? The answer is quite simple: Bandurists who moved to the United States in the last century due to the instability of the situation in Ukraine, which was often under the rule of other states, had to try and preserve the traditions they took away with much effort and all their might, meaning they just managed to preserve the format and the repertoire. I would really like to say that times have changed and we can relax, but the last 1.5 years have shown that Ukrainian culture, like many other cultures in the world, is at risk of disappearing. And those bandurists who are in Ukraine today are mostly representatives of the academic school of playing while folk players were often persecuted and their work prohibited during soviet time.

I am a non-standard bandura player who grew up listening to art rock, and in my student years I became very interested in the folk music of different ethnic groups, I even played guitar in an Irish band in Lviv. Even more interested I was in world music, where you are better able to mix and experiment. When working with Ukrainian folk songs in my band Troye Zillia, I often looked for a dialogue with other cultures – for example, I added Irish and African motifs to arrangements. Therefore, GMW became a real paradise for me.

During the GMW, I constantly felt a great concentration of mutual interest. We talked to each other a lot during breakfasts and lunches, but the most interesting aspect were the almost random night jams, when we found a little time between rehearsals and performances to try to play together. We understood that we might never meet again and that this was a unique chance to create something together.

In this way, it was possible to create a collaboration with the Iranian musician Mehrnam Rastegari, who moved to the USA more than a year ago and plays kamanche and the violin. There were several Iranian musicians at the GMW who played oud, drums and sang. In a strange way, I felt a very good connection with the Iranian music community, especially about the experience of life during the war. One evening, Mehrnam and I sat down to play together. I sang the Ukrainian folk song “Oy U Poli Drevo” (“The Tree In The Field”), after which she told me that she could feel and understand everything, an experience that cannot be described in words.

So kam es zu einer Zusammenarbeit mit der iranischen Musikerin Mehrnam Rastegari, die vor mehr als einem Jahr in die USA gezogen ist und Kamantsche und Geige spielt. Beim GMW waren mehrere iranische Musiker anwesend, die Oud und Trommeln spielten und sangen. Auf eine seltsame Art und Weise fühlte ich mich der iranischen Musikgemeinschaft sehr verbunden, vor allem, was Erfahrungen des Lebens in einer Kriegssituation angeht. Eines Abends setzten Mehrnan und ich uns hin und spielten zusammen. Ich sang das ukrainische Volkslied „Oy U Poli Drevo“ („Der Baum auf dem Feld“), woraufhin sie mir sagte, dass sie alles fühlen und auf diese Weise verstehen konnte, eine Erfahrung, die man nicht mit Worten beschreiben kann.

Another extremely organic and interesting collaboration happened with a musician from Hong Kong, Wan Xing, who plays the traditional instrument zheng. From the first time we saw and heard each other, we said together that our instruments are sisters, they have so much in common! When we sat down to experiment, our friends from the British Isles stopped by. After only ten minutes, we were playing as a trio with Gregor Black, an Irish bodhrán player. That same evening we recorded several improvised compositions, and after the end of the workshop we realised that we want to continue playing together as a trio. So we started seeing each other online, looking for new opportunities to meet and named our project Aspiration GWA. You can listen to our first demo recordings here: www.youtube.com/@AspirationGWA.