On May 5, British-Ukrainian bass-baritone Pavlo Hunka died at the age of 67.

Born in England to a Ukrainian father and an English mother on April 7, 1959, Hunka qualified as a linguist and practiced as a lawyer in the UK before changing to a singing career.

He first began vocal studies at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music and completed them in Switzerland.

He went on to sing at the Basel Opera Company and many of the leading theaters in Paris, Vienna, Munich, Florence, Amsterdam, London, and Salzburg.

He also went on to form Toronto’s Ukrainian Art Song Project, which aimed to introduce the world to over a thousand art songs by many different Ukrainian composers.

Over the years Hunka performed many roles including the Barak (“Die Frau ohne Schatten”), the title role of “Wozzeck,” Golaud (“Pelléas et Mélisande”), Bluebeard (“Duke Bluebeard’s Castle”), Pizarro (“Fidelio”), and Kaspar (“Der Freischütz”). He also sang a lot of Italian and Russian repertoire as well as Wagner.