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It certainly is not the typical EDM or Euro-pop that usually comes from Eurovision. It’s a catchy (in Nashville, we would say “hook-y”) pop song. In “Stefania,” Kalush Orchestra has infused Ukrainian folk music, melody and instruments with hip-hop verses. (More than 180 million people tune in.) The head of MusicWorks International, for the past 10 years Heumann has been teaching Ukrainian seminary students and organizing conferences for worship leaders in the country.įollowing Ukraine’s musical victory, Heumann spoke with global media manager Morgan Lee about what made “Stefania” a hit, the emotional reactions to the win he’s seen on his social media feeds, and Ukraine’s 2016 Eurovision winner’s surprising Christian connection. Kondyuk’s UETS colleague Fred Heumann is the rare American who closely follows the widely popular singing competition. “I see Eurovision as an opportunity to discuss why certain bands are popular and what questions about our society we may ask, or get an answer to, if we discover the existential need people are filling with these songs.” Though “Stefania” includes a nod to “wisdom of Solomon,” few participating songs include religious themes and the only evangelical that Kondyuk can recall ever participating was Finnish singer Nina Åström, who competed in 2000. “It serves as a reminder of peaceful times, recalling not only a family’s story, but also the history of the nation itself,” said Kondyuk. “Solidifying our cultural identity in a time of war is a victory and this is a statement that Ukraine is not Russia and has both its own tradition and contemporary art forms,” he said.Īlthough Kalush Orchestra wrote the song before the war, many Ukrainians have interpreted its imagery, written to honor one of the band member’s mothers, to refer to their motherland.
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“This win makes us feel supported and gives us a certain pride of being Ukrainian with our own history and local aesthetics,” Denys Kondyuk, who leads the missiology department at the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary (UETS) in Kyiv and who writes film reviews in Russian and Ukrainian, told CT.
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On Saturday, Kalush Orchestra took home the top honors for “Stefania” as 25 countries competed in the finals of the competition hosted in Italy, which won the event last year. Ukraine’s evangelicals cheered alongside their country people and the rest of Europe last week when Ukraine grabbed the Eurovision crown for the third time.