As Dmytro Morykit finds new ways of reaching fans, without fail they ask 'Why haven't we heard of you before?' His fans span all ages, from eight year olds to eighty years and they have one thing in common; they recognise music that will stand the test of time. Music that elevates and has depth that cannot be explained. So how does he answer that question?
If you consider the musical world during Dmytro's lifetime, from the 70s to the 21st century, there has been an incredible change from art to industry. Music has become a business and you require business skills to succeed. It is no longer possible to be just a good artist unless you have these other skills, or surround yourself with people who do. Sometimes you surround yourself with the wrong people and it takes time to recognise that and then extract yourself from it. There is also the huge impact that technology has had on music. If you were born, as Dmytro was, before the computer age, then it is difficult to understand, let alone adjust to technology, you are always catching up. Unlike those born from the late 80s on, who find technology a natural part of their lives, older musicians have had to begin learning at a later stage and often trust in others to give them access. Sometimes it felt easier to just ignore it and hope it would go away, but it didn't go away and then there was the catching up. Dmytro was late to technology, he didn't exist on the internet at all in 2010. Instead he lived and worked in Edinburgh always hoping to be supported by that extensive artistic community. Always frustrated by the outcome.
When I met Dmytro in 2010, I discovered he held most of his music in his head. Quite a bit was on old cassette tapes and only a few pieces were on CDs. None of it was available on the net. I began to catalogue, but as I listened, I realised that something had to be done quickly to record all of his incredible compostions on better and more durable media. It was going to be a time-consuming task, there was a huge back catalogue of original and inspired work, not all of it has yet been recorded. Many people still ask him why he doesn't write it down - as though classical musicians should only work with quill, paper and a powdered wig.
Two years ago he began to play his own music live (for years he'd been playing covers as that is what people expected and asked for). It's not easy to find an audience for an unknown Classical pianist playing his own work so we began by organising concerts alongside films - the programme was called, Music in Manufacture. On seeing one of these performances, the organiser of a small cinema club suggested he write a new score for Fritz Lang's Metropolis. He took up the challenge and as he had only eight weeks to create it, instead of writing a new score he put his existing work alongside it and discovered many of the pieces fitted almost perfectly with various scenes. Thereby he created a concert of his own work which danced with the film. I could finish here by saying, the rest is history, but there is still a lot of history to be written on this.
What this has shown is that there is still a love of classical music played on a piano, it is not a niche. He's had effusive reviews written by Heavy Metal fans as well as from people who would admit to never having listened to classical music. Then there has been the lifetime classical music lovers who thought that all the good music had been written, yet they have queued to meet him after concerts. Great music, when it is found, still appeals to all people. That very human instinct for it is still alive and searching.
