Our Life in Music
First and foremost, the Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir celebrates the Divine Liturgy. In the tradition of the Eastern Rite Church, the choir joins the priest, deacon, cantor and parishioners in common prayer with one voice and one heart in the mystical ascent of the divine as it relates to the worship of God.
Listening to the choir, some have said they were transported to a higher plane — a spiritual level, so to speak. If that indeed is the case, then the choir has succeeded in fulfilling the purpose of a chorus in a Byzantine Rite church. As the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptystky wrote:
“A Christian demands of church music that it elevate the soul into a kind of supersensual, supernatural world, so that even in this respect the singing should give an example of that Christian life which, in the words of the Apostle, is in heaven. Sung prayer must create the impression of a higher reality — superterrestrial, angelic. Church harmonies must possess something cherubically immaculate, something pure, uplifting, noble. Besides this, church singing must also be as it were a [suitable] background for our magnificent rites; that is, they must be attuned to their nobility, to the majesty of faith proclaimed by all the rites; they must be an echo of ancient times as it were, of the first centuries of Christianity with their primitive Christian mode of expression. The Rite coupled with appropriate church singing — this is something eternal, ancient, ancestral, like everything in our Church: persecuted from antiquity but still alive, developing, and sometimes even manifesting brilliant victories.”
DECREE OF THE LVIV ARCHEPARCHIAL COUNCIL "REGARDING CHURCH SINGING”, April 25, 1941
Today’s St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir has its roots in the parish youth choir established in 1985. Founding conductors and liturgical music enthusiasts, Roman Hurko and Taras Kovalchuk, studied briefly with the late Maestro Volodymyr Kolesnyk, former director of the Kyiv Opera and Ballet Theatre (1969-1972). In 1987, choir member Adrian Ivakhiv took up the conductor’s baton.
After Adrian Ivankhiv left to pursue graduate studies in 2000, Roman Hurko returned as conductor. In that same year, the youth choir was officially designated as the Parish Choir. In 2004, it was Roman Hurko who left Toronto to continue his studies, convincing Zhanna Zinchenko, a graduate of the National Music Academy of Ukraine (2001), to accept the position of Conductor and Artistic Director of the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir. Ms Zinchenko continues in this role today inspiring chorister and leading the evolution of the ensemble.
The choristers of the Parish Choir love to sing. They are bound together by their passion for Ukrainian sacred music and choral singing . The choir readily welcomes all like-minded admirers of classical and modern Ukrainian liturgical music into its ranks.
A Life Dedicated to Song
Zhanna Zinchenko’s musical education began at the Mayboroda College of Music in the eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhja. Completing her studies at the Mayboroda College, Ms Zinchenko moved to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, where she studied choral conducting at the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy under the National Opera of Ukraine’s head choirmaster, Prof. Lev Venedyktov.
Immigrating to Canada in 2001, Ms Zinchenko accepted a position as Deputy Choir Conductor of the St. Demetrius Ukrainian Orthodox Church Choir in Toronto shortly after her arrival and remains with her first Canadian choir to the present day.
Eager to engage in the musical culture of her adopted country, the multitalented and hard-working Ms Zinchkenko joined the choral ensemble of the Mississauga Opera Company in 2002 for its production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida.
A talent that was bound to be noticed, Roman Hurko, who was leaving Toronto to pursue his own musical journey, recruited Ms Zinchenko in 2004 for the position of Conductor and Artistic Director of the Parish Choir — a role in which Ms Zinchenko continues to this day. Wanting to ensure her new choir was at its amateur best, Ms Zinchenko invited internationally renowned opera singer Pavlo Hunka to join her in conducting voice master classes for the ensemble.
And in what proved to indeed be a very busy 2004, Ms Zinchenko also founded an a cappella quartet, made up of parishioners of St. Demetrius Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Under Ms Zinchenko’s direction, the quartet has since recorded the sacred music of Maksym Berezovskyj, Dmytro Bortnianskyj, Artemij Vedel, and other Ukrainian composers.
The Concert of Koljady, an annual fundraising concert performed by the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir in support of Dzherelo Children’s Rehabilitation Hospital in Lviv, Ukraine, was initiated by Ms Zinchenko in 2006 and is now an ensconced Toronto Christmas tradition.
In 2011, when the Ukrainian Youth Ensembles Corporation found themselves in need of a conductor for their women’s choir, Levada and their men’s choir, Orion, they turned to Ms Zinechenko, who continues to conduct performances of the ensembles at concerts and community events.
As a co-founder of the Oranta Singers, Ms Zinchenko participated in the 2017 recording of the Divine Liturgy composed by Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir member, Sister Christine Dudych, SSMI, at the St. Augustine’s Seminary in Toronto.
Serving as a vocal coach and guest conductor for the venerable Toronto-based Vesnivka women’s choir, Ms Zinchenko was also piano and vocal coach at the Canadian Contemporary Music Academy (2003-2009) and has sung with the Musicus Bortianskii ensemble conducted by Myron Maksymiw.
It would be remiss not to mention Ms Zinchenko’s work with children. She is indeed, a natural. Establishing the children’s liturgical choir at Cardinal Josyf Slipyj School, Toronto Catholic District School Board in 2010, Ms Zinchenko conducted the choir until 2020. She has also served as music teacher at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church’s Saturday Heritage School since 2010.
Under the direction of Ms. Zinchenko, in January 2020, the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir was the first Canadian choir invited to participate in three festivals of koljady (Christmas carols) in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk.
Recently, Ms Zinchenko paired with Victor Kowalenko to form the StarDust Jazz Duo, which has recorded Ukrainian poetry and folk lyrics in dazzling settings, highlighting the versatility of her talent. Click here for a quick listen. (https://youtu.be/r7jkgIVZq5Y).
