Kvitka Cisyk
Kvitka "Kacey" Cisyk (Ukrainian: Квітка Цісик; Квітослава-Орися Цісик, Kvitka Tsisyk; April 4, 1953[1] – March 29, 1998) was an American coloratura soprano of Ukrainian ethnicity. Cisyk, a classically trained opera singer, achieved success in four musical genres: popular music, classical opera, Ukrainian folk music and commercial jingles for radio and TV advertisements.
Kvitka Cisyk
March 29, 1998 (aged 44)
Singer, actress
1971–1998
- Jack Cortner
1
Vocals
Cisyk recorded "You Light Up My Life" for the film of the same title (Oscar and Golden Globe Awards win in 1978), sang the "Have you driven a Ford lately?" and "You deserve a break today!" jingles, and released two critically acclaimed albums of Ukrainian songs.
Early life[edit]
Cisyk was the daughter of two Ukrainian immigrants from Eastern Galicia; her given name, Kvitka, is Ukrainian for "flower".[1] Her father, Wolodymyr Cisyk, a well known Ukrainian concert violinist and teacher,[1] taught his daughter the violin when she was five years old, grooming her for a career as a classical musician.
Education[edit]
Cisyk attended the High School of Music & Art in New York City and graduated in 1970. She attended Harpur College, also known as SUNY Binghamton, for one year directly after high school. Her sister taught piano there. In the summer of 1971, she attended a SUNY-sponsored opera program in Ghent, Belgium.[2] She received a violin scholarship to the Mannes College of Music, but had switched to classical voice training by the time of her graduation.[3]
In January 1971, the initiative committee (chaired by Lubomyr Zobniv),[4] which consisted mainly of Harper College students, created a television program called "Thoughts of Ukraine" to mark the Day of Unity of Ukraine.[5] The script was prepared by Maria Cisyk (music teacher) and Maria ("Mima") Koropiy (graduate student in French; host of a Ukrainian radio program).[6][7] The program featured Ukrainian folk dances, poems by Taras Shevchenko, songs performed by Kvitka Cisyk with guitar accompaniment by Bohdan Sokhan (a student from New York) and Yuriy Turchyn (a student at Rutgers University), and songs accompanied by Maria Tsysyk's piano. The individual performances were harmoniously combined with photographic material from Ukraine and background music selected and played for the program by Maria Cisyk. On the evening of January 22, the program "Thoughts on Ukraine" was broadcast on WINR-TV.
Ukrainian music[edit]
As the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, Cisyk was raised with Ukrainian music, and she is well known in the Ukrainian-speaking world for her two albums of Ukrainian songs.[1] According to Cisyk she recorded these albums because her colleagues often asked her to "show them something Ukrainian, but there were no records worthy of being shown".[1]
In 1980 she recorded her first album, Kvitka, Songs of Ukraine which won top honors in the 1988 Ukrainian Music Awards.
Her second album, Kvitka, Two Colors, released in 1989, was dedicated to "the spirit of the Ukrainian soul, whose wings can never be broken." Today, songs from both albums continue to be heard on radio in Ukraine.
Both albums were nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.[1]
Both Songs of Ukraine and Two Colors were family projects. Cisyk's second husband, Ed Rakowicz, a recording engineer, produced Kvitka Two Colors; her first husband, Jack Cortner[15] arranged and conducted them both. Her sister, Maria Cisyk, a concert pianist and teacher, performed the solo piano selections on the record, and her mother, Iwanna, made sure her Ukrainian pronunciation was perfect.
Death and legacy[edit]
Kvitka Cisyk Rakowicz died on March 29, 1998, six days before her 45th birthday. She died of breast cancer.
For what would have been the singer’s 60th birthday, Ukrainian Inter TV channel broadcast a documentary film Kvitka. Single copy voice. The film examined the phenomenon of her life and career, and interviewed her relatives and close friends: husband Ed Rakowicz, son Eddie, family from Lviv and the United States, as well as peers and fans. On April 4, 2013 premieres of the film took place in Kyiv, Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Odesa, Luhansk and Chernivtsi. The film debuted on Inter TV channel on April 5, 2013.
Her contribution to Ukrainian music is recognized with a yearly music festival. Parks and streets were also named for her in Kyiv, Vinnytsia Oblast and Lviv, Ukraine.[16] In September 2022 a street that was named after Soviet child actress Gulya Korolyova in Dnipro was renamed to honor Cisyk.[17] On 20 May 2024 the Poltava city council renamed a street in its city in honour of her.[18]