Nadia Korpus was born in Regina, Saskatchewan on the 18th of August 1929. Her father, Peter Korpus (Korpesio) was born in Malniv, Ukraine in 1897 and followed his older brother, John Korpesio to Canada in the early 1920s. Nadia’s mother, Olga Wawruck, was born in Hubbard, Saskatchewan in 1903. Her parents had arrived in Canada in 1899 from Koshlyakeh, Ternopil Oblast, Halychyna, Ukraine. Peter and Olga were married in Hubbard in 1926, and settled in Regina where they soon started a family. Their oldest son, Roman (Raymond), was born in 1927 followed by Nadia in ’29. Nadia’s younger brother Donald (Donny) was born in 1930, and her younger sister Patricia (Pat Sembaliuk) was born later in 1935.
She was active in the Ukrainian National Federation and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada. Her passion for Ukrainian Culture was further encouraged through participation in the summer school “Kursy” which she attended in 1946-48. Nadia is noted for establishing the Rusalka Dance Ensemble in Calgary (1961-67), and having inspired many Ukrainian dancers, both male and female, to continue dancing and teaching across the prairies.
Composer, arranger, conductor, ethnographer and educator Alexander Koshetz (b. 1875, Romashky, Ukraine, d. 1944, Winnipeg, Canada) was born into a priestly family and studied at the Kyiv Academy and the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute. Koshetz began conducting choirs while still a student and directed the choirs of the Lysenko Institute, Kyiv University and the Kyiv Conservatory. He also worked at Mykola Sadovky’s Ukrainian Theatre and the Kyiv Opera House. In 1919, at the directive of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, he became co-founder and chief conductor of the Ukrainian Republican Cappella, which toured Europe and the Americas with the aim of introducing the world to Ukraine. Kozhetz produced large numbers of a cappella choral arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs. He also introduced American audiences to Mykola Leontovych’s “Shchedryk.” Following the fall of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Koshetz settled in the United States. While living in the diaspora, he composed most of his liturgical music. From 1941 to 1944 he led annual choral conducting courses in Winnipeg. He also began developing a music curriculum for the Ukrainian diaspora, writing a history of Ukrainian choral music and produced a recording project on the Ukrainian choral tradition.