Ukrainian-American developer Danylo Centore has launched a Kickstarter campaign to restore production of the Kharkiv bandura, an instrument that almost disappeared in the 20th century after Soviet repression.
Ukrainian-American developer Danylo Centore has launched a Kickstarter campaign to restore production of the Kharkiv bandura, an instrument that almost disappeared in the 20th century after Soviet repression.
The author is a third-generation representative of the Ukrainian diaspora. According to him, his love for Ukrainian culture and music has accompanied him since childhood, and the bandura itself has become a way to preserve and pass on this heritage.
The Centore Bandura project has already raised over $8,500 against its $5,000 goal, surpassing its initial goal in less than 48 hours. The additional funds will go towards new prototypes, tooling, and ramping up production.
The Kharkiv bandura is one of two modern branches of the development of the traditional instrument, along with the Kyiv bandura. In the 1930s, during the Great Terror, hundreds of kobzars were repressed or executed, and the tradition itself practically disappeared.
After World War II, the instrument was only preserved in the diaspora — in particular, thanks to the masters Petrova and Alex Goncharenko, who continued to make banduras outside of Ukraine.
Today, the situation is critical: new Kharkiv banduras are almost not produced, and most of the existing instruments are decades old. In some cases, musicians are forced to play on instruments that are over 100 years old.
Centore approaches the task as an engineering project. It combines traditional craftsmanship with modern technology:
One of the key challenges is the semitone levers, which allow the instrument to be quickly tuned. Historically, each master has created their own version of such a mechanism, and none of them have been perfect.
Danylo tries to combine the best solutions and adapt them for modern production. The cost of manufacturing a set of such mechanisms reaches about $2000, which significantly affects the overall budget of the prototypes.
The developer has already created the first prototype, which has received positive feedback from musicians, but needs further refinement. He now plans to make 2-3 more prototypes to eliminate technical issues before launching mass production.
Funds raised through Kickstarter should speed up this process. In case of underfunding, the author is ready to continue development at his own expense, but this could take years.
