My name is Markian Komichak and I am the choir director at St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Parma, OH. Since 2020, I have been studying old choir music from Ukrainian churches around the country, and in that time, I have discovered hundreds of historical items, which I have scanned and cataloged into a database.
The idea for this project came to me as I was cleaning out the storeroom in the choir loft of my church. Packed away were boxes of old sheet music that were left by former choir directors of the parish, some items dated back to the 1920s. Most originated at St. Vladimir’s, but some were collected from other parishes around the country. I found items from San Diego, Buffalo, Passaic, Woonsocket, Ambridge, and even Montreal and Winnipeg. It occurred to me at that point that there must be many other parishes around the country that have similar collections of material.
My primary interest is not so much in the content of the music itself, but rather with other musicological concerns like the choice of the repertoire, the style of notation, the peculiarities of the words and language that were used in those days, and so on. I am interested also in finding out information about the individuals themselves—their names and the dates and places that they served.