Vasyl Yemetz

Vasyl' Kostovych Yemetz (Ukrainian: Василь Костьович Ємець; 15 December or 27 December 1891 – 6 January 1982) (2 August 1890 – 4 January 1982) (also went by Wassyl, Vassyl) was born in the village of Sharivka, 40 km from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Son of Kost' and Yevdokia (Kurakhovych). Married to Maria Hotra-Doroshenko. Virtuoso bandurist, founder and initial director of the Kobzar Choir in 1918 - the direct protégé of the Kiev Bandurist Capella and the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus.

Yemetz was born to a Cossack family. His father was interested in Ukrainian ethnography and his family was one of the first to have a phonograph (1899) with which they recorded and collected folk songs. It is from one of the local kobzari, Ivan Kucherenko, that Yemetz became drawn to the culture of the kobzari and learned to play the bandura in 1908.

His first performance as a bandurist took place in 1911, and became very controversial because of the text of the song he chose to sing.

He studied at the Kharkiv University (1911–13) but was forced to transfer in 1914 to Moscow University because of his political activities. In Moscow he became the first bandurist to perform solo in the Bolshoi Theatre in 1916. After this performance he was first hailed as a virtuoso in the Russian press.

In the summer of 1913 he was invited by Mykola Bohuslavsky to Yekaterinodar in the Kuban to teach bandura. He was instrumental is establishing the modern bandura playing tradition amongst the Kuban Cossacks.

After completing his studies at the Moscow University he received a teaching position in 1917 in Sosnytsia, Chernihiv province in Ukraine. There he was chosen as a delegate at the All-Ukr. National Congress held in Kiev in 1917.

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