Heorhy Tkachenko


Heorhiy Kyrylovych Tkachenko.

Biography

Tkachenko was able to complete his secondary education in the Kharkiv Art School before continuing his education in Moscow. He completed his tertiary education in Moscow Vkhutemas graduating as an architect in 1929. He continued to live in Moscow where he designed many of the parks around the city centre. He also professionally worked as a painter, teacher of aquarelle at the Moscow Architectural Institute before he moved to Kiev in 1964.
Tkachenko was also known as a bandurist. He was the last living example of the Slobozhan bandura tradition playing on a traditional folk bandura. His repertoire included many spiritual works and dumy. He had a significant following amongst the Ukrainian intellectuals from the mid 1960–1990s and is considered the founder of a movement of authentic performance practice on Ukrainian folk instruments.
Tkachenko studied the kobzar art from Slobozhan kobzar Petro Drevchenko.
Tkachenko's repertoire included eight dumy, five psalms, twelve historic songs 29 folk songs and 5 dances.

Recordings

Numerous non-professional recordings have been released on CD and a number of Tkachenko's performances have been recorded on film and video. A number have been uploaded to YouTube.

Publications