Conference Agenda

Organized by the AMS Childhood and Youth Study Group

Our invited speaker, Maria Sonevytsky, will present a paper entitled “Retrofitting the Bandura for a Soviet Childhood: Ukraine’s National Instrument, Violent Erasures, and the Plan for a Communist Music." This study addresses the Soviet regime’s creation of mass bandura orchestras for children in Kyiv, just years after the Soviet regime had executed much of the older generation of bandura players in Kharkiv for supposed "anti-Soviet activities." Anicia Timberlake (Peabody Institute- Johns Hopkins University), Knar Abrahamyan (Columbia University), and Joy Calico (Vanderbilt University) will respond to the paper, drawing on their own research on music and childhood in Communist and post-Communist societies.

This study addresses the Soviet regime's creation of mass bandura orchestras for children in Kyiv, just years after the Soviet regime had executed much of the older generation of bandura players in Kharkiv for supposed "anti-Soviet activities."