Vadym Shevchuk, known as “Yarema,” was born in 1967 in Kyiv.
He is a Ukrainian musician, lirnyk, bandurist, art restorer, and scholar of traditional Ukrainian music and a member of the Khoreia Kozatska ensemble.
Shevchuk studied artistic design at the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts and art history and theory at the National Academy of Visual Art and Architecture. As an art restorer, he worked on the frescoes of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery and the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyivan Cave Monastery, at St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral in Kherson, and the Rozumovsky Palace in Baturyn.
He studied the lirnyk tradition in the Stara Vyzhivka and Kozelets districts. Shevchuk is a member of the Kyiv Kobzar workshop and can play the hurdy-gurdy, old-world bandura, duda bagpipes, recorder, and other instruments. His repertoire includes Ukrainian and Western-European instrumental music from the early Middle Ages to the late Baroque.
“I was walking the paths around the history museum one day and heard the playing of an old-world lira and singing. It came as a total shock. From then on, there were no other matters. The very next day I found a master, Mykola Budnyk, who made these musical instruments and taught me performance skills. From then on I have been playing this old-world music,” said Vadym Shevchuk.
In 2015, Vadym Shevchuk joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
