He brought Ukrainian music to N.L.'s mainstream. Now he's celebrating a 50-year career

CBC

a day ago

Brian Cherwick's basement studio is a monument to his years lived through songs and stories. It's a treasure trove of instruments, some even of his own invention.
If the walls could talk, they'd probably sing. They hold up the posters of his previous concerts. Biographies of legendary artists and songbooks line the shelves.
It's in that basement where Cherwick looks back through his 50-year music career.
"It was kind of inevitable for me," he said, referring to when he first played piano as a child.
"My uncle was a professional musician and he sometimes would let me come listen to them rehearse."
His uncle's band took popular English songs and translated them to Ukrainian. Those songs got stuck in Cherwick's head. It snowballed from there, he said.
WATCH | Brian Cherwick takes a walk down musical memory lane:
Brian Cherwick has been playing music for 50 years. Here are some of the highlights
3 hours ago
Duration 3:11
Cherwick is known these days for his role in The Kubasonics. It's "arguably Newfoundland's finest Ukrainian band," according to the band's website.
But his career before that is a winding road with many different musical genres along the way.
"I ended up going to music school at university," he said, sitting in his warmly lit home rehearsal space. "So learning classical music, I started learning jazz music, I played in a country band for a while, I played in a vaudeville comedy act."
He also sang with choirs in Winnipeg.
The multi-faceted musician and scholar has been revisiting all of those old tunes, preparing for an anniversary show with The Kubasonics set for Saturday at The Ship Pub in downtown St. John's.
His son, Jacob Cherwick, and daughter, Maria Cherwick, are also in the band.
"A lot of the music that we're playing is music that he wrote when I was a kid," said Maria Cherwick. "It's really fun to kind of revisit it again as an adult."
Some of the songs are completely new to Cherwick's family and musical partners.
"It's kind of like getting a rundown on the entire last 50 years in the span of a month," Jacob Cherwick said, laughing.
Ukrainian connections
Cherwick has always lived in Canada, but has roots in Ukraine. The traditional folk music of his family's history colours the way he makes music today.
He's been to Ukraine twice with The Kubasonics.
"We used to make a joke before the war started," said Cherwick. "When people asked us, 'are there lots of Ukrainians in Newfoundland?' We'd say 'yeah, they all live in my house.'"
The five-piece speed folk act has garnered a whole new audience since Ukrainians started moving to the province amid the Russian invasion in 2022, he added.
The Kubasonics has the standard makings of any other band: a guitar, bass and drums. But Cherwick also has an arsenal of instruments that most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians would consider obscure.
He often plays the tsymbaly, a percussion instrument with metal strings. He also owns a number of banduras, which is often called a Ukrainian harp.
"Lately, talking to newcomers, they're happy to see that there's something that reminds them of home," said Cherwick.
As much fun as it is to take a step back in time, Cherwick says he plans on moving forward with his music once the anniversary show is over.
"I'm doing this once and then I'm not going to do it again," he said with a grin.
"I'm always, always trying to think of something new."