Galina Tsmyg

Discovering Belarus: choral cultural exchange as a phenomenon of modern European culture

Galina Tsmyg holds a PhD in musicology (2005) and is author of more than fifty scientific publications, including monographs, sections of scientific editions, brochures, essays, materials, and theses for international scientific conferences. Currently, she is Head of the Music Performance Art Department at The Institute of Art Criticism, Ethnography and Folklore of The Center for the Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

During her EEGA fellowship Galina will work on her research project „Discovering Belarus: choral cultural exchange as a phenomenon of modern European culture“. It focuses on choral art that accumulates historical, social, and cultural determinants and then broadcasts them in the form of collective creative activity in Belarus and abroad. The goal of the project is to reveal the essence of Belarusian choral art as a system in its functioning in modern society and to understand its interaction with Western European cultural complexes in the period after the fall of the “Iron Curtain” (1992-2020) based on documentary material of cultural exchanges of the Belarusian choir Cantus Alba Rutheniae with Western European groups.

Additionally, Galina Tsmyg will give the workshop „Performing art of the Belarusian choral music: specifics of the voice production technique“. Together with her Belarusian colleagues, she will illustrate the materials of the scientific research. They will show the originality of concepts and artistic value of unpublished choral works of Belarusian authors unknown to the Western European community. The workshop will consist of two parts (Part 1: „Sacred music of Belarusian composers“ and Part 2: „Choral music of Belarusian composers of folklore style“).