Oksana Ostashevska

After completing two years at the Ivano-Frankivsk Pedagogical Institute, where she studied voice and conducting, Oksana Ostashevska attended Mykola Lysenko Lviv National Music Academy. Having graduated, with honours, she worked for 16 years as an instructor at a music education college, where she taught theory – harmony and solfeggio – and where she worked as accompanist in conducting classes.

In 1998, Oksana immigrated with her family to Canada, where she held a variety of jobs unrelated to music. She also acted as accompanist in ballet classes, and led a church choir.  In 1999, together with Andrzej Labedz, she organized Polonia Choir, which performed in Edmonton Symphony’s performance of the opera “Harnasie” by Karol Szymanowski. She has been the choir’s artistic director/conductor since then.

Polonia Choir performs mostly for the Polish community, but it also participates in the general community concerts and fund-raisers. It has traveled to various cities in Canada and the US, to take part in choir competitions and festivals, such as Le Mondial Choral Loto-Quebec in Laval, Serenade! Washington, DC Choral Festival and The Polish Singers Alliance of America International Convention and Choral Competition in Philadelphia, where Polonia Choir was awarded the coveted Hlond Trophy for the finest overall performance.

Oksana has had an opportunity to create arrangements for many of the songs in Polonia Choir’s repertoire, most recently for Leonard Cohen’s Halleluja, in celebration of Canada’s 150^th anniversary. It was performed in Philadelphia.

Oksana has been a school librarian for the past 11 years, and is fluent in 4 languages.