Anya Yurchyshyn by Stephanie Diani

Kaiya Cade

Anya Yurchyshyn grew up in a narrow townhouse in Boston, every corner filled with the souvenirs of her parents’adventurous international travels. On their trips to Egypt, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, her mother, Anita, and her father, George, lived an entirely separate life from the one they led as the parents of Anya and her sister – one that Anya never saw. The parents she knew were a brittle, manipulative alcoholic and a short-tempered disciplinarian: people she imagined had never been in love.When she was sixteen, Anya’s father was killed in a car accident in Ukraine. At thirty-two, she became an orphan when her mother drank herself to death. As she was cleaning out her childhood home, she suddenly discovered a trove of old letters, photographs, and journals hidden in the debris of her mother’s life. These lost documents told a very different story than the one she’d believed to be true – of a forbidden romance; of a loving marriage, and the loss of a child. With these revelations in hand, Anya undertook an investigation, interviewing relatives and family friends, traveling to Wales and Ukraine, and delving deeply into her own difficult history in search of the truth, even uncovering the real circumstances of her father’s death – not an accident, perhaps, but something more sinister. Listen to Anya Yurchyshyn talk about her memoir, My Dead Parents and you’ll quickly understand why her passionate, unflinching memoir is, as Norman B says, “One of the most moving non-fiction books I have ever read!”

James Smith of the always forward-thinking Fox Food Records sent us a pre-release of the new album from CADE. “I was immediately entranced,” says Norman B, “Every so often new music comes my way that makes my heart beat differently, CADE did just that!” CADE is the recording project of Toronto based Kaiya Cade who creates ethereal and haunting dream-folk, combining acoustic instruments and synthetic sounds with her bewitching and spellbinding vocals.The musical awareness and critical ear Kaiya has developed has evolved into a passion for film composition. Creating ethereal and haunting sonic landscapes, Kaiya combines synthetic sound with the acoustic instrumentation of piano, guitar, strings, sound bowls, and percussion, and finishes the musical environment with her characteristic vocal overlaying.

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Show #267