Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

Austrian composer, Franz Schubert died young, at the age of 31, but his music lives on to this day, including his many beautiful songs, that vocalists and audiences have cherished for nearly two centuries.

And San Antonians will have the opportunity to hear some of them this coming Sunday – as well as Schubert’s chamber music compositions – thanks to Musical Bridges Around the World that decided to celebrate the composer’s 225 birthday. “Happy Birthday, Schubert!” will feature the Dallas-based Julius Quartet and Ukrainian-born rising soprano star, Yelena Dyachek who now resides in Houston.

On Sunday, Dyachek will sing some of Schubert’s favorites, such as Érlkonig, Die Forelle, Salve Regina, and her personal favorite, Gretchen am Spinnrade, a song based on Goethe’s Faust, which “carries a deep connection to one of (her) favorite operatic roles, that of Marguerite in Gounod’s opera Faust.

This will not be the first time for her to sing Schubert’s beloved songs, but she admits that it took her a while to embrace that repertoire. “I have to say that as an undergraduate, when everyone was singing these songs – especially Die Forelle, which was like a stepping stone in our training – I was adamant not to perform them,” said the vocalist. “Schubert was so popular that I wanted to explore other repertoire before I started performing Schubert.”

But now that she is indeed into Shubert, so to speak, she describes the songs as “beautiful poetry.” It helps that she has learned enough German since her undergraduate days to appreciate the weaving of poetry and melody. “When you come back to these songs when you are a little older and little more seasoned, you appreciate the depth and the meaning of the songs,” she said.

However, the Sunday birthday salute will be her first time to perform Schubert’s lieders in concert as well as her first time to play with the Julius Quartet. “I very much enjoy performing with a string quartet,” she added. A lot of the times in a recital you only perform with a pianist, which is wonderful, but when you have a string quartet, just the harmonics and the overtones that you are able to hear as a singer help you blend with the ensemble. That’s one of my favorite things to experience.”

Like Schubert, Dyachek was immersed in music and learned to play several instruments at an early age, growing up in her hometown of Hnivan in the Vinnytsia Region in central Ukraine. As Christian Protestants, the family experienced some discrimination during Soviet time, and even limits to pursuing higher education, as was the case with her mother. Yelena was nine when her family emigrated to the   United States and settled in Sacramento, California. Her parents and other relatives still live there, and that’s also the place where the bulk of her music education took place. She credits her first voice teacher, Alina Ilchuk, for introducing her to opera by taking her to see Aida at the Sacramento Opera. That was a game-changer for the teen. She has since been building an impressive career by winning prestigious competitions, appearing on opera stages, and garnering glowing reviews. Dyachek was the winner at the Grand Finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New York City in 2017. This competition is known for launching the careers of opera singers across the U.S. She later moved to Houston to perfect her skills at the Houston Grand Opera’s HGO Studio.

And she recently got her Texas driver’s license, making her officially a Texan, she quipped.

Needless to say, it is heartbreaking for her and her family to witness the war in her homeland, where they still have relatives.

“This past month-and-half has been very difficult,” noted the singer. “I was in Sacramento with my family when the war broke out. Sacramento has a very large Ukrainian diaspora, and this shook all of us.”

The community organized aid deliveries for the refugees in Poland, and even gathered to pray in front of the White House in Washington. Dyacheck and her American husband continue that charitable work to this day, including helping their relatives inside Ukraine whose town is still in fairly good shape.

On a lighter note, she remembered her first vocal solo that took place in her church when she was three years old. “At the end, she proudly shouted for everyone to hear: “Mom, I did not miss a single word!”

And it’s very unlikely that she will miss a single word Sunday.
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April 10 at 7 p.m.; San Fernando Cathedral, 115 Main Plaza; free but tickets are required for entry at
musicalbridges.org/event/happy-birthday-schubert/