Musicologist and concert programmer Leah Batstone leads a guided listening session through Ukrainian musical history. From “white voiced” folk singing to choral polyphony, experimental composition, and electronic music, discover the wide variety of genres and styles that define Ukraine musically. Prof. Batstone will introduce and explain several examplars of Ukrainian music by way of a short overview of Ukrainian music history. The presentation will conclude with discussion of Dakha Brakha’s unique blend of styles and their relevance to global understanding of Ukraine today.
After the event, at 6 PM, Batstone, along with UMaine Instructor of Russian Alex Tyutyunnyk, will lead a pre-event talk at the Collins Center for the Arts. Together, they will discuss Ukrainian folk music and the evening’s performers, Ukrainian folk quarter: DhakaBrakha.
Dr. Batstone, Assistant Professor of Music History at Monclair State University and Creative Director of the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival, is a distinguished historical musicologist whose research focuses on the intersections of art music, politics, and philosophy, with particular emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe. Her first book, Mahler’s Nietzsche: Politics and Philosophy in the Wunderhorn Symphonies, was published by Boydell and Brewer in 2023.
A leading scholar of art music in Ukraine, Dr. Batstone is currently preparing two forthcoming publications: a monograph on Ukrainian musical modernism and a handbook on Stefania Turkevych’s Symphony No. 1—the first known symphony by a Ukrainian woman composer. She is also co-editing Perspectives on Ukrainian Music (Indiana University Press) and organizing a special issue on Ukraine in Musicologica Austriaca.
Her research has appeared in journals such as Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Music and Letters, 19th-Century Music, and Musicology Now, with an upcoming article in the Journal of the American Musicological Society examining Ukrainian modernism in the context of imperial music histories.