Ukrainian | New York, New York
Andriy Milavsky, clarinetist and master piper, is an Eastern European folk musician par excellence. One reviewer has called him “the Charlie Parker of Ukraine.”
His experience in Carpathian folk music spans 30-plus years as a performer, soloist, and orchestra leader/arranger with the top traditional state collectives in Ukraine. He has toured Eastern and Western Europe as the protégé of Ukraine’s foremost wooden flute player, Popadiuk the Elder, and as a beacon in that tradition, is a true legend in the making.
Mr. Milavsky founded the group Cheres in 1990 upon graduating from the Kyiv State Conservatory of Music. The group’s vigorous folk repertoire features instrumentals from the mountains of Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, and neighboring Eastern European countries. Currently based in New York City, the group aims to keep alive the folk traditions, songs, and melodies of the Carpathian region.
Cheres’ musical arsenal comprises a wide array of instruments such as wooden pipes, soprano and tenor pipes, double pipe, trembita (a 12-foot shepherd’s pipe), tylynka (ametal pipe without finger holes), panpipe, bagpipe, ocarina (or sweet potato), mountain orjaw harp, clarinet, violin, hammered dulcimer, double bass, accordion, drum, and other percussions.
The group’s authenticity and level of expertise have earned them spots on NBC-TV’s Today in New York; a live interview/performance on The Next Big Thing and repeated air-time on New Sounds, both WNYC radio programs; as well as an interview on the BBC.
Cheres has also played sold-out engagements at nightclubs and concerts in New York City (Town Hall, Joe’s Pub, Knitting Factory); at major music festivals (Damrosch Park and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, the Smithsonian Festival in Washington, D.C., River to River Festival in NYC); and universities on the East Coast, including Harvard.
Since moving to the US in 1991, throughout his career in the U.S. Mr. Milavsky has also been actively involved in promoting traditional Ukrainian music in other ways, such as conducting Carpathian folk seminars; arranging and recording melodies for Ukrainian dance companies; and acting as a consultant to record producers working on Eastern European projects. Many of the centuries-old folk hits Cheres plays have been recorded on labels specializing in the genre, such as Ellipsis Records’ “UnBloc(k)ed,” Smithsonian Folkways’ “Global Beat of the Boroughs,” and “From the Mountains to the Steppe,” the group’s own release.