Ostap Stakhiv. Z namy Boh! (Carols). (God With Us!)

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first album by the new project of Ostap Stakhiv – Stakhiw-Orchestra. And, probably, not the last one – it seems that it is in this project that Stakhiv's skills of modernizing the traditional Ukrainian music have been expressed most distinctly. We have already repeatedly indicated that Stakhiv can do that convincingly and interestingly, so no wonder that now a number of talented persons have come together round him: Oleh Rozumovsky, Myron Bloschychak, chamber orchestra "Lviv Virtuosos" – this is far not an exhaustive list of those who took part in creation of the album. By the way, it is here that one can finally once again hear Ostap Stakhiv's playing the bandura: in a few previous albums, the bandura could hardly be heard – although once the first recognition dawned on him exactly as on a bandura-player. So, what will you hear here? Melodies familiar from childhood – but in arrangements close if not to variety jazz than, at least, to easy listening in the variety manner. At all events, this seems to be quite a successful experiment – the folklore foundation was not lost, but the language of music obviously tends to universality. That is why, we believe, this album can interest both the senior generation, and youth – the more so that one can hear here not only Ukrainian Christmas melodies.