Musicologist Miklós Both is on a mission to capture and preserve traditional sounds from remote Ukrainian villages. Since 2013, he’s made regular trips into the deepest countryside, recording peasant choirs whose heritage is rapidly disappearing in the digital age.

Thousands of songs have already been collected from more than 100 locations. He has created an online audiovisual archive, the Polyphony Project, that chronicles the context as much as the art itself – not just the physical and oral expression of culture, but also the ideas and their surroundings.

Director/Producer/Editor: Frederick Bernas
Executive Producers: Doug Baldinger, Chris Naka
Additional Video: Polyphony Project

Video released by Atlas Obscura – August 27, 2019.


Radio story broadcast on Newshour – September 15, 2018.