The Polyphony Project is the largest open song archive of Ukrainian folklore. The mission of the Polyphony Project is to explore, preserve and present the living musical folklore of Ukrainian villages. In addition to recording the intangible cultural treasures of the Ukrainian peasantry using state-of-the-art technology, their priority is to make this heritage of unparalleled value accessible to contemporary society. Having accumulated over centuries, this legacy is finally available online in an organised form.
The website is an online archive of musical folklore where songs are catalogued with detailed descriptions and can be listed by various criteria. The songs are recorded using 4K technology, which created incredibly detailed shots that support the authenticity of recording, whilst serving as an accurate documentation of folksong. Each voice of the polyphonic songs is recorded with a discrete microphone, which makes it possible to separate and isolate the voices on a multitrack player and users can listen to them using various combinations of tracks. The lyrics are all transcribed in its original language as well as into a Romanised version. The website is made incredibly accessible through its search engine as you can select songs based on themes, main motifs and context of performance e.g., seasons, rituals and feasts.
By watching these videos, you can observe most of the folksongs are sung by the ‘Grandmothers of Ukraine’, all of whom have a love for their traditions and a deep connection to their roots. One of the main aims of the Polyphony Project is to show young people this music and encourage them to learn and experience this music. In today’s Westerncentric culture and large-scale dissemination of pop songs, it is easy for these old traditions and ‘original’ songs to be lost in history, but the Polyphony Project and these Grandmothers are fighting to keep these folk songs alive and sung for more generations to come.
Maki Gajic Murata, Composer in Residence
Image credit: UNDP Ukraine
