Yesterday at 21:05
Photo from Ukrinform–UATV
Today is the 65th birth anniversary of Kvitka Cisyk, an American opera-trained singer of Ukrainian descent.
She was born in New York in 1953 to a family of Ukrainian immigrants. Her family left Lviv in 1944.
Her father, Volodymyr Cisyk, worked as a teacher at the Ukrainian Music Institute of America in New York. He taught his daughter to play the violin when she was 5 years old. She also studied ballet.
In 1974, she graduated from Mannes School of Music in New York, where she studied opera. During her studies, she recorded jingles and was a background singer for Bob James, Carly Simon, Quincy Jones, Roberta Flack, Michael Jackson and other American performers. She performed under the pseudonym “Kasey.”
In 1977, she performed the song, You Light Up My Life, for the film of the same name. The song held the No.1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart for ten consecutive weeks. The song received an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Grammy Award for Song of the Year, a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers award.
Cisyk was the voice of the automobile company, Ford, from 1981 to 1998. Ford executives estimated that Cisyk had been heard by a cumulative audience of 20 billion. In addition, she performed musical jingles for other major American corporations, like General Motors, Toyota, ABC, NBC, CBS, McDonald’s, American and Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. She entered the world of jingles by her need to make money.
She recorded two Ukrainian-language albums: Kvitka, Songs of Ukraine in 1980 and Kvitka, Two Colors in 1989. Both songs were nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
In 1983, the singer and her mother visited Ukraine. They spent some time in Lviv and other Western Ukrainian cities. After that trip, she used the songs of Volodymyr Ivasyuk, a Ukrainian songwriter, composer and poet in her repertoire. A yearly music festival is held and a street was named for her in Lviv, because of her contribution to Ukrainian music
On March 29, 1998, she died at her home in Manhattan, just six days before her 45th birthday.
Everyone who heard Cisyk’s voice for the first time was shocked, amazed and stunned. Her voice captured listeners immediately. It was unique and unforgettable. It combined power, tenderness and sincerity.
