Vasyl Yemetz

Vasyl Kostovych Yemetz (; 15 December or 27 December 1891 – 6 January 1982) (2 August 1890 – 4 January 1982) (also went by Wassyl, Vassyl) was a Ukrainian bandurist. He was founder and initial director of the Kobzar Choir in 1918 - the direct protégé of the Kyiv Bandurist Capella and the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus.

Biography Yemetz was born in the village of Sharivka, Ukraine. He was born to a Cossack family. He was the son of Kost' and Yevdokia (Kurakhovych).

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.

Yemetz's brother-in-law Hryhory Kopan wrote to him inviting him back to Kiev to re-establish the Kiev Bandurist Capella in the early 1920s, however he declined to return.

In 1926, Yemetz continued touring Eastern Europe with solo recitals. In 1927, he first performed in France and Belgium. In early 1929 he toured Carpathian regions in Czechoslovakia and Romania, before returning to France and setting off for North America.

North America In 1929, Yemetz toured North America for the first time to great success recording his first record there in 1932.

In 1934, Yemetz returned to France. He returned to North America in 1937 touring all the major cities of Canada and the United States. He married and in 1941 became an American citizen.

Yemetz settled in Hollywood and started work in 1945 on constructing a chromatic concert bandura. He developed a new repertoire for the instrument and toured the United States in 1946 with classical transcriptions played on the new chromatic concert bandura. This is the first time that works such as Beethoven's "Moonlight sonata" and Tchaikovsky's "Arabian dance" were performed on the bandura.

In 1952, he recorded an LP record, however it was not commercially released.

After 1956, he retired from performing and spent most of his time collecting materials and writing memoirs many of which remain unpublished. Much of his personal archives including music, photographs and concert programs were stored in a trunk he had left with a musicologist in Winnipeg. These were destroyed during the Great Winnipeg Flood.

He died in Hollywood on 4 January 1982.

Publications He published over 40 articles on various aspects of the bandura.