Henrietta Yurchenco: ethnomusicologist, activist, grandmother

By Larry Littman

Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— Dylan Thomas

At 91, she was still a work in progress. She had lived a very full life, but despite ill health she had to go on because there were still books to write, music to discover, talent to encourage and wrongs to right. There was an unjust war out there, and if you had a voice you had to use it to protest, even if it meant defying the authorities. If you had a life you had to act. After all, living was acting, not sitting on the sidelines.

That was Henrietta Yurchenco, whose lungs finally gave out on Monday, Dec. 10 but whose voice was clear and intense until close to the end. Her profession was ethnomusicology, and she pursued that calling largely by going to the source, not the library. She was a pioneer in the field, traveling to remote corners of the world to record songs and stories that might otherwise have disappeared without a trace, a pursuit that was outside the bounds of women at that time.

At the beginning of her career, between 1941 and 1946, she made several legendary trips on muleback into the Sierra Mountains of Mexico, carrying 300 pounds of recording equipment. She discovered people unknown to the outside world and brought back a collection of 2,000 of their songs for the Library of Congress.

In addition to the rare recordings, Henrietta communicated her broad knowledge of the field as a teacher, broadcaster and writer.

As a radio producer and interviewer on WNYC in the 1930s, she broadcast such relatively unknown musicians at the time as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Leadbelly.

Oscar Brand, the folk singer and storyteller and host the Folksong Festival on WNYC, which celebrates its 62nd anniversary this month, recalled Henrietta at the station in the 1940s.

“She was a woman who did what she wanted to do and made sure that everyone knew it. She was interested in Native American music.

Nobody I knew in those days was interested in Native American music.

So, she did a bunch of programs for me on the music.”

I visited her in her home in Chelsea a few days before she passed. We were making plans for a get-together in her apartment that would include members of Chelsea for Peace, the community group to which we belonged. While she could not hide her respiratory problems and frail frame, there was still the familiar quick wit and feisty nature.

“Get them over here Larry,” she said. “I may not be as good a hostess as I used to be, but I can still hold an audience.”

Meanwhile, a close friend and assoociate was coming in from Mexico to help her complete the new book she was working on, about women from developing countries. The musicians in Common Ground, her singing group, were preparing for their weekly rehearsal in her home. And her son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren looked forward to spending the holidays with her, although they knew she wouldn’t be well enough to sit at the piano and lead them in the singing of the old standards anymore.

Although she had been ill for some time, Henrietta’s strong personality and infectious energy and enthusiasm nevertheless made her death come as a shock to most of us who knew her. She was encouraging and inspirational, particularly to young musicians and political activists who shared her women’s rights and anti-war sympathies.

Gabriela Barrios, a lawyer from Mexico City, had translated parts of Henrietta’s memoir, “Around the World in 80 Years,” into Spanish, and the two became good friends and associates. Gabriela traveled to New York earlier this month to help Henrietta complete her new book, but when Gabriela arrived, Henrietta was in the hospital. “She looked very ill, but she said to me in a strong urgent tone: ‘Come on, I’m getting out of here on Tuesday, and we have a lot of work to do.’”

But she died the next day.

“She was a very inspiring figure,” said Gabriela. “She didn’t follow any model. She didn’t need a path. She created her own life in a spirit of freedom. And she believed the way to communicate this freedom is by art.”

Gabriela now is planning to devote more of her time to writing. “I have another book in mind, and I know I have to do it. It would be a novel based on the life and spirit of Henrietta.”

Bob Malenky, a teacher and musician, also taught music at City College and became a member of Henrietta’s music group, Common Ground. Malenky recalls an informal lounge concert at the school put together by Henrietta, in which Sonny Terry, the blues harmonica player, performed.

“I was rather an inexperienced musician at the time, but Henrietta liked my playing and encouraged me to get up and play a number with him. But it turned out fine. Years later, I actually participated in some recordings by Terry.

Kaz Kisaichi took music courses taught by Henrietta at City College and became a member of Common Ground.

“Music was the center of her life. We would rehearse in her apartment almost every Thursday with a repertoire we picked from various folk music sources,” he said.

One year, they played at a fund-raising concert for Chelsea for Peace at St. Peters Church in Chelsea.

“Politics was very important to her, and she helped me to raise my political consciousness. She believed that you have to speak up and act on your political beliefs—of course in a peaceful way—if you want them to be meaningful.”

Joe DeRupo, another member of the group, can vouch for Henrietta’s activism. He was with her at three anti-war demonstrations in New York, one of them was on her 87th birthday. It was March 22, 2003, shortly after Bush invaded Iraq, and she and DeRupo marched down Fifth Avenue toward Washington Square Park, where a rally was planned. DeRupo approached Dominic Carter of New York 1, and told him about Henrietta being there on her birthday. He put her on the live TV newscast on the spot, and Henrietta voiced her opposition to the war.

At the same time, the political activist’s son Peter and daughter-in-law Ingrid advised me that family was also very important to Henrietta.

“She was a totally devoted grandmother,” said Ingrid. “Along with everything else she was involved with, she was our son Nicholas’ piano teacher.”