(uplifting music) - The fact that we have this instrument today and that it's survived over all of these ages, it's a big act of defiance, but it's also a big motivator and reason for why it's important to keep playing it, to keep sharing it because many people tried really hard to eradicate it, meanwhile other people really tried to keep it going.

So just seeing these efforts, you really get inspired by it and want to keep it going.

(uplifting music) Also, my name is Angelica and I'm here of my brother.

- I'm Justin.

- And we are both siblings and we play together in a duet called Bandura Duo.

And we like to play an experiment with lots of various different instruments.

Our main ones is bandura, which is the Ukrainian instrument that has over 65 strings.

- We both come from like a musical background, so like in my case, I started playing ubo in elementary school and then I transitioned to saxophone and a guitar, I also picked it up, but bandura is one of my latest instruments.

I just fell in love with it and I've dedicated myself to playing bandura.

- After the full scale invasion of 2022, we started playing in this instrument more seriously and we took up on it as our main instrument and we started performing at various different fundraisers and charity concerts and events in order to help spread awareness about not only this instrument, but also about what's happening in Ukraine.

The history about it is very interesting because it used to be played by wandering blind musicians or bards who had traveled from village to village and they would play songs that spread news, spread cultural stories because for many centuries there was always someone trying to take over Ukrainian land and it would separate the people.

But people still shared their ideas, they shared their language and identity.

I don't know if there's any instrument that held the power that this one has, because for many times it was banned and it was not allowed to play it.

And it was even viewed as dangerous.

During the 1800s, it wasn't even allowed by Russian authorities to walk around with a bandura on your back.

And during the 1900s during the Soviet Union, many of these players, they were rounded up together and they were executed and their banduras burned.

There was this one big conference where they invited these players and they said that it was a ethnographic music conference to discuss and celebrate their music.

Instead, it was a farce in order to gather everyone up and to destroy this power.

And the reason why is because it's harder to control people who have their own identity, it's viewed as dangerous.

And if not for this instrument, I wouldn't have felt disconnected to meeting other people all over the United States and Canada and just other people who are just like me, who are also Ukrainian American, who also are musicians.

Because when you play together with a lot of different people, when you share a story, it's a very powerful thing and I just don't think I wouldn't have been able to feel this connected to my culture otherwise without it.

(uplifting music) - Music for many, it can also be viewed as like therapy.

And right now when there's like lots of hardships going on, I see that bandura is very inspiring in terms of its own history, which history and the culture that it comes from.

For others, I would see how bandura it can be very inspiring.

(Uplifting music)