Today, the Ukrainian Bandura Chorus from Kiev performs worldwide. Mykola Lysenko is probably the best known Ukrainian classical composer, famous for basing piano works on Ukrainian folk songs. Popular contemporary musicians include the punk band Plach Yeremiyi and the singer-songwriter Nina Matvienko, who draws heavily on Ukrainian folk traditions. Christianity came to Ukraine late in the 10th century. The Catholic and Orthodox churches split in 1054, and Orthodoxy itself later split into three main branches, each one with a different relationship to Moscow-controlled Russian Orthodoxy and to Roman Catholicism.
Church buildings dominate Ukrainian architecture.
As part of their campaign to crush Ukrainian identity and nationalism, the Soviets demolished hundreds of sacred buildings in the 1930s, including four 12th century cathedrals. Painting also has its roots in religious themes. Until the 17th century, the key expression was the icon - a small image of Christ, the Virgin, angels or saints, painted on a limewood panel and attributed with healing and spiritual powers. Church murals, mosaics, frescoes and illuminated manuscripts developed at the same time as the icon. The rise of the Cossacks in the 17th century stimulated new schools of secular painting with nationalist themes.