Yemets, Vasyl

Yemets, Vasyl or Yemetz, Wassyl [Ємець, Василь; Jemec', Vasyl'], b 2 August 1890 in Sharivka, Bohodukhiv county, Kharkiv gubernia, d 6 January 1982 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Bandura player; singer and teacher; brother of Fedir Yemets. He learned how to play the bandura from blind kobzars living near his family’s holdings and started to perform when he entered Kharkiv University (and later Moscow University) in 1911–12. He organized and directed the first banduryst chorus in Ukraine in Kyiv in 1918 and (after emigrating in 1920) an ensemble in Prague. He taught students in Poděbrady. He toured extensively throughout Western Europe, the United States of America, and Canada, finally residing in Hollywood from 1937. He authored the book Kobza i kobzari (The Kobza and Kobza Players, 1923) and wrote articles on the bandura and bandurysts in Ukrainian, Czech, and French. A collection of memoirs, photographs, press clippings, and articles about or in praise of him was published in 1961 as Vasyl' Iemets': U zolote 50-richchia na sluzhbi Ukraïni (Vasyl Yemets: On His Golden 50th Anniversary of Serving Ukraine).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]