A Ukrainian musical group will engage and inform Central Oregonians about its country’s culture and customs when it performs ancient Ukrainian folk songs and original compositions on Wednesday, Jan. 21 at the Tower Theatre in Bend.
YAGÓDY, a seven-member musical ensemble that formed in Lviv, Ukraine, is the first offering in a new three-concert series offered in collaboration between the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx) and Oregon State University-Cascades. Doors open at 6:30pm, and the show starts at 7:30pm.
“What I love about YAGÓDY is that they take Ukrainian and Baltic folk songs and really bring them into the modern musical moment. Their performances are highly theatrical from the point of view of costumes and staging and the energy in the hall. It has a really spectacular and cool theatrical quality and is super engaging. It’s a way to encounter these traditional works but in a new and exciting and literally amplified way,” said Peter Betjemann, OSU associate vice provost of Arts and Humanities and Patricia Valian Reser, executive director of PRAx.
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 and has displaced more than 10.6 million Ukrainians. Prior to that, eastern Ukrainians endured more than eight years of conflict with Russia-backed forces. Zoriana Dybovska, 44, founded YAGÓDY in 2016 after relocating from Ukraine’s Donbas region, where hostilities had escalated, to Lviv, one of the largest cities in western Ukraine.
An actor by profession, Dybovska sought out other singers and actors who could help her keep their culture alive by theatrical musical interpretations of Ukrainian songs that have been passed down through generations. To date, YAGÓDY has toured extensively across Europe and also in South Africa, performing both traditional Ukrainian folk songs in what they call an “ethno-drama” genre and their original works, including “Tsunamia,” that earned them fifth place out of 37 entries as they represented Ukraine in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest.
Typically, the group has seven members, but for the spring 2026 U.S. tour, only five are performing, including Dybovska and Parashchuk Nadiia, an accordionist; Voitiv Tetiana and Voloshyn Vasylyna, both vocalists; and Gogitidze Teimuraz on drums.
The group previously toured North America in 2025. This spring’s tour, which is “a little smaller,” according to Viktor Lykhodko, 38, the band’s general manager, will take them from Colorado to New Mexico, Seattle, Eugene and Bend, among other locations. The group wears traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts, known as vyshyvanka, that are “part of Ukraine’s wardrobe passed down through generations” and that are “the clothing of free people” and a “symbol of Ukrainian strength and a modern weapon against Russian propaganda.”
Speaking from Lviv via WhatsApp, Dybovska answered questions in her native tongue while Teimuraz, 41, the band’s drummer who is based in London, England, and Lykhodko, who’s in Valencia, Spain, translated. YAGÓDY’s focus on Ukraine’s ancient folk songs, with haunting voices and Balkan rhythms, taps into Ukrainians’ national pride and reminds listeners of how music can reflect the power of a culture and place.
“Our main message that we want to share with people is not just show them our culture but also to show them that Ukraine is not Russia. Ukraine is Ukraine and Russia is Russia. They have completely different languages and are completely different countries,” said Dybovska. “Our songs are the face of Ukraine. Our language, our culture, everything is so different from Russia. Russia is trying to destroy all of this. Just this evening, there was a massive attack of missiles and drones. They want to destroy all of this, and our mission is to show people who we are and that this is genocide and it’s trying to destroy our culture. People that live in Ukraine are going through really big challenges, but at the same time, they’re not leaving their country. They feel obligated to stay there and fight for freedom.”
“What is the reality?” she added. “The reality is that every single day, alarms are going off and people are dying. Lots of people are dying. Kids are being killed. Families are dying. It’s become a normal thing, but it’s not normal. People are a little bit nuts, but in a good way, a positive way. No matter what’s happening, we keep going. We’re strong. It’s impossible to destroy this country. People in Ukraine are proud of where they live and know what they’re fighting for. Our aim is to enlighten people and tell them what’s truly happening.”
The members of YAGÓDY will conduct a “Costumes, Culture and Performance Theatre Design Workshop” at the Corvallis OSU campus on Jan. 23. Creating engagement activities for visiting and on-campus artists, where they can connect across fields, is a focus for PRAx, said Betjemann.
“Our mission is to activate the arts across every discipline at OSU,” he said. “Obviously, introducing people to the arts and humanities is wonderful, but what do you get from that cross-discipline approach? One is that we believe pretty strongly that the sciences and engineering and research need to speak in languages other than their own, which can be hard to follow because they’re highly technical. One of our goals is to be that translator. We believe that the world needs this more than ever right now. The translation of science and research findings into other mediums that people can appreciate and engage with. Our goal is to use the arts to spark conversation and prompt interest and dialog.”
Last year, PRAx “brought in an Afro pop star who’s a fashionista in her country,” Betjemann said, and she performed and also worked with students in OSU’s apparel design program, while a dance company that use robots as part of its performance engaged with engineering students to discuss technology.
PRAx is a 49,000-square-foot performing and visual-arts destination on OSU’s Corvallis campus. It has four indoor and two outdoor venues to host concerts, exhibitions, and performances by international touring artists and by OSU students. Additionally, it’s “the hub of an arts and humanities network at OSU, promoting and facilitating arts-based approaches to all kinds of knowledge through unique initiatives and artist residencies and fellowships in research labs, field stations and other environments.”
Christine Coffin, director of Communications and Community Engagement for OSU-Cascades, said that when OSU-Cascades was in development a decade ago, university officials worked with Central Oregon community members “developing and creating a kind of a vision for what the campus was to be. We worked with hundreds of community members to get their input on what they envisioned the university would serve.”
One takeaway from that was a desire for increased cultural experiences, hence the collaboration between OSU-Cascades and PRAx to present three concerts in Central Oregon in 2026. The next one, on Sunday, April 12, will feature Imani Winds and Andy Akiho performing their collaboration “BeLoud, BeLoved, BeLonging” at Tower Theatre.
Imani Winds, a Grammy-winning New York wind quintet, commissioned the piece from Akiho, a seven-time Grammy nominee, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the 2024-25 composer-in-residence for the Oregon Symphony. Akiho, the current Patricia Valian Reser Artist-in-Residence at OSU, composed the piece, which is inspired by sounds heard at a detention center in Brooklyn, New York.
The third concert presented by PRAx and OSU-Cascades will be in the fall of 2026. Details are still being confirmed.
YAGÓDY
Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 7:30pm
Tower Theatre
835 NW Wall St., Bend, OR 97703
towertheatre.org/
Cost varies
This article appears in the Source January 8, 2026.
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