Lanky musician and composer-cum-instrument maker Oleksy Kabanov of Kyiv likes to keep himself busy...
Lanky musician and composer-cum-instrument maker Oleksy Kabanov of Kyiv likes to keep himself busy.
“In music there aren’t any full stops; it’s just infinity all the way,” he said recently at Alazani, a Georgian restaurant that’s appropriately snug for a raw October.
Easily switching from one instrument to the next the way some people channel surf, Kabanov is well-versed in almost as many of them as he has fingers: the hurdy-gurdy (a barrel-shaped organ played by turning a crank); the sitar and sarod from India; the flute; the santoor (which is similar to the Ukrainian tsymbal); African and Indian drums; and on and on. The list seems endless, even if it isn’t.
The 32-year-old bachelor plays all of the more than 30 instruments he owns, and makes his own in his balcony workshop. Kabanov’s not just interested in music; as he puts it, he “lives” for it.
“Right from the start, when I attended music school as a young boy,” he said over a bowl of spicy tomato-meat Harcho soup (Hr 19) and traditional Georgian khachapuri bread with cheese filling (Hr 22), it wasn’t “just the sounds, but the whole atmosphere that moved me. Then, as I grew up, I got interested in the process of making the instruments themselves.”
A 1993 graduate of the Kyiv National University of Culture, Kabanov found his way into Indian musical styles and instruments by first playing in a rock band. Though fun at times, the band and its simple music soon bored him, so he shifted his attention toward folk music – first from Ukraine and then from India. The instruments used in that music were like nothing he’d ever seen before.
“First I saw the hurdy-gurdy, a 1,000-year-old instrument, and I immediately liked it,” Kabanov said. It was 1994, and Kabanov had begun working at the studio of one of his university professors, Mykolai Budnyk. Through Budnyk, Kabanov met members of the Kobzar Players Association. Kobzars are Ukrainian bards and musicians who play traditional folk music to the accompaniment of the kobza, a stringed instrument; the members of the Players Association make their own kobzas. Eventually, Kabanov’s interest in the group and the music grew so much that, with Budnyk, he made his first hurdy-gurdy (in Russian called a lira) in 1995.
In 1996, Kabanov, who by then was already a devotee of Indian classical music, met an American musician named John Spalding. Spalding introduced him to the tabla – an Indian drum set consisting of two drums, one slightly larger than the other. After practicing together, the duo recorded a tabla-lira composition. “It was my first oriental music experiment,” Kabanov explained.
The influence of traditional folk instruments such as the kobza soon came to mean a great deal to Kabanov. He found, in fact, that its music could put him into a near-meditative state. Today, meditation is as close to Kabanov’s heart as his music.
Between bites of tender lamb chops (Hr 49), Kabanov (or Losha to most anyone who knows him) talked animatedly about his kundalini meditation practices, practiced under the auspices of Sahaja Yoga. He started meditating in 1997. Kundalini, which originates in India, focuses energy in seven bodily centers, called shakras. Presently, Kabanov is a devotee of Sahaja Yoga, which he said has improved his concentration, and therefore his understanding of music.
“When any musician performs, he must be able to control his state of mind and extend it to his audience,” Kabanov said. Meditation, he says, “is connected to the higher orders of cosmic consciousness, as [the musician] not only plays for the listeners, but also works with their energy. Sahaja Yoga gives me all that.”
Kabanov started playing the sitar back in 1997; soon after, he became interested in the sarod and the santoor. Using the experience he gained making traditional Ukrainian instruments, Kabanov went ahead and built his own santoor in 1998. Subsequently, he began building up his Eastern musical repertoire.
“I’ve learned to play ragas – Indian classical compositions – on the sitar, santoor and sarod,” he said.
Kabanov, who paired Alazani’s “Chakhohbili” chicken in tomato sauce (Hr 40) with vegetable rice (Hr 10), has been composing his own music for seven years now. He says it’s a “fusion” of Indian styles mixed with jazz and New Age elements. Meanwhile, he says that he considers the situation for independent or avant-garde musicians in Ukraine like himself to be becoming easier – wide open, even.
“It’s still uncharted territory,” he began. “It’s not like in the West, where oriental/alternative music is appreciated and in demand. Such sounds are new here.”
He continued: “I have my own creative contacts. Currently I play at Chayny House in Kyiv, mostly experimental fusion music. We Ukrainians are forming our own economy now, and the best thing is that we have have preserved our unique culture and spirituality, and many Ukrainian folk musicians are being invited to perform abroad.”
Kabanov is among those who have been invited to play abroad, having participated in several festivals, playing jazz, Ukrainian folk and Indian music in Hungary, Austria, Slovakia and elsewhere.
Drinking orange juice (Hr 7) with his food, the long-haired, laid-back Kabanov revealed plans to perform in a musical ensemble with German hurdy-gurdy maker and player Kurt Reichmann in Frankfurt. Kabanov will also play the hurdy-gurdy, his favorite instrument of them all.
Alazani
1G Saksahanskoho, 205-4467.
Open daily from 12 p.m.
to the last customer.
