For some, the American dream begins with the search for safety and stability, a promise of a more abundant life. But for Yuliya Tymochko, it began with Whitney Houston.
Hearing “I Will Always Love You” for the first time at age 9, at summer camp, turned Tymochko’s world upside down. Everything about the song felt like magic: the words, even though she didn’t understand any of them, the singer’s velvety voice, the haunting melody and the glimpses of a place it evoked in her imagination.
“I want to be a singer and I want to go to America,” Tymochko declared to her teacher the day that she heard the song in Ukraine.
Growing up, Tymochko was the go-to performer in her class, chosen for folk song performances and talent shows. She won first place in a student singing competition and was soon recognized as the best singer in Rivne, her hometown in western Ukraine. If anyone needed a performer for a corporate event or a wedding, they knew to call Tymochko.
But in 2021, when Tymochko was 37, her singing career took off in a major way. After placing second in the Ukrainian version of the American singing competition, “The Voice of the Country,” she was on track to record a Ukrainian- and English-speaking album. The gig offers were flowing in.
But like for many other Ukrainians, the Russian invasion of Ukraine shattered these plans, throwing Tymochko’s big dreams into uncertainty. With the help of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Tymochko evacuated to Poland, and after a legal refugee pathway opened up, Tymochko could finally go to the place she’d dreamed of since she was a child. Her younger sister Aliona had been living in Utah for years and invited her to join the family there.
On a recent afternoon, I met Tymochko in South Jordan, Utah, where she lives with her sister Aliona, Aliona’s husband Jordan (Rep. Jordan Teuscher is a member of the state Legislature representing South Jordan), and their three children. We sat in a room with a large speaker, a piano, a microphone and shelves lined with books. Later that afternoon, Tymochko would teach a student voice and stage performance.
At home in Ukraine, the war continues to devastate cities and families. On the eve of July Fourth, Kyiv suffered the largest aerial attack since the war began, with 550 drones and 11 missiles landing on the capital. It injured 26 people and left two dead.
This was never how Tymochko imagined her path to America. But she believes there’s a larger purpose behind how her life has unfolded.
So now she is starting fresh. In Utah, she founded a Ukrainian vocal ensemble, auditioned for The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square and worked with the known songwriter Michael McLean. She’s preparing to release an album.
Nearly 30 years after hearing Whitney Houston at summer camp, Tymochko says her dreams have come true, just not in the way she could ever imagine.
Longing for more
From the outside, it seemed like Tymochko made it professionally. By day, she led a youth ensemble in Rivne, her hometown. She sang at bars and restaurants at night, basking in praise from her listeners. For years, her repertoire included mostly Ukrainian and Russian pop songs, but after Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014, the lineup shifted away from the Russian songs toward more Ukrainian and American hits.
Word got around and everyone wanted to book Tymochko. She formed a band with a friend, and together they traveled across the country performing at weddings, parties and festivals. The work paid well and she started buying things to make the apartment, where she lived with her mom, more comfortable. Occasionally, she even sang songs by her childhood idol, Whitney Houston, who had embodied the big-stage dreams Tymochko had nurtured since she was a girl.
But deep down, Tymochko longed for more.
In the late 1990s, while walking with a friend at a park, she spotted a pair of American young women with name tags who later invited Tymochko to attend a service at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She didn’t have a dramatic spiritual awakening, but something about it felt “right,” she told me. She’d always believed in God, but never took her faith seriously.
She was also captivated by the small details that hinted at the world she had conjured up in her mind: the ankle-length dresses of the sister missionaries, the way they highlighted their worn-out Books of Mormon with colorful gel pens. She even inherited a khaki dress she would cherish for years from one of them. Everything at church felt like a step closer to her dreams.
In 1999, Tymochko and her sister were baptized. But after her favorite American sister missionary left, Tymochko said she began drifting away from the church.
“I had to figure out how to keep going on my own,” she said.
Years later, during what she called a professional, and existential, dead end — when singing in restaurants no longer fulfilled her —another idea surfaced: What if I went on a mission? It was an unusual choice for a 35-year-old; most Latter-day Saint missionaries serve in their late teens and 20s. Still, she went for it, serving a mission in Dnipro in eastern Ukraine. She wanted to continue serving a full 18-months-long mission, but then the pandemic hit.
Big stage
Tymochko often found herself at dead ends, dismayed and unsure how to move forward. But each time, she reoriented, with music and her faith propelling her ahead. Back home, Tymochko felt a creative spark. She recorded a song in English, “If You Could Hie to Kolob,” and dreamed of completing a full album of faith-inspired music. But finding collaborators and studio support proved difficult, and the project stalled.
Then in 2021, a friend suggested she audition for “The Voice of the Country,” Ukraine’s version of “The Voice” competition. Tymochko had tried this before: she applied to the Polish edition in 2015 and X Factor in 2018, but with no luck. She didn’t expect much, but this time was different: She passed the audition and kept moving through the rounds.
“It turns out that when I knock on a door, it’s just barely opened or not opened at all,” she told me. “When someone knocks for me, it always works.”
Soon, her life no longer revolved around small-town gigs at pubs and restaurants.
“Finally, things are moving forward,” she thought. She was staying in central Kyiv, giving interviews and rehearsing in the home of her coach and one of Ukraine’s most famous singers, Tina Karol. Her confidence surged: “It was like these inner walls started to crumble, the barriers that kept me at this constant, flat level.”
In the quarterfinals, under a bright spotlight, she appeared in a flowing blue dress, her dark hair curled over her shoulders. She sang Whitney Houston’s “All the Man That I Need.”
Although Tymochko came out second in the “Voice” competition, her popularity, especially in her hometown of Rivne, soared. She became a local celebrity, with people comparing her to Whitney Houston and Ella Fitzgerald. People called her their “Adele from Rivne.” Performance offers poured in. But after singing on national television, it all started to feel too small.
“I said I no longer want to be like Whitney Houston or Adele — I just want to be myself, Yuliya Tymochko,” she said. She began writing and recording original music and in 2021, she gave her final “small” performance at a wedding.
The American dream reimagined
Like for many Ukrainians with relatives in the United States, the call on Feb. 24, 2022, came early in the morning. Tymochko and her mother were woken up at 5 a.m. by a phone call from Aliona in Utah.
“I could tell right away from my mom’s voice that something was wrong,” Tymochko said.
Within two weeks, Tymochko learned that a family was helping people evacuate to Warsaw, Poland. While packing her suitcase, Tymochko grabbed a microphone, just in case.
Tymochko’s newfound visibility in Ukraine proved useful in Poland. Through a connection, she met a jazz musician and even performed with an orchestra. When a pathway opened through the U.S. government’s Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program, she saw an opportunity to realize her lifelong dream: coming to America.
She had tried for years to visit the United States, but her tourist visa was repeatedly denied, likely due to her sister’s residency status.
“Of course, I didn’t imagine my dream coming true like this,” Tymochko told me. “It wasn’t a vacation package that brought us here, but awful circumstances like this war. We were forced to leave our home and our familiar life.”
Now, living in a quiet Daybreak neighborhood, Tymochko was ready to start rebuilding her life.
But like other Ukrainian refugees in Poland, Spain and the United States, this dream was weighed down by the tragic circumstances and uncertainty surrounding it.
“I mean, we’re talking about dreams. I didn’t even get to feel the joy of my dream coming true. When we were living in peace, all of us Ukrainians dreamed of traveling to Italy, to France, to Germany or Poland. It felt exciting, something to look forward to. You plan the trip and enjoy it,” she said.
“But in this case, it was the war that drove us from our homes.”
Building a life in South Jordan
And yet, she kept looking for ways to sing.
She auditioned for the Tabernacle Choir but eventually felt that the demands, especially memorizing lyrics in English, would be too difficult.
She worked with Michael McLean, songwriter, director, filmmaker and author, known for his production “The Forgotten Carols.” Tymochko, along with a friend, adapted one of McLean’s songs, “Hold On,” into Ukrainian, and Tymochko recorded it as a message of encouragement for Ukrainians living through the war. She tried applying to be on the American “Voice” competition, but one of the eligibility requirements is U.S. citizenship.
Just last month, McLean reached out with another project, she said, and she hopes they’ll work together again. In the meantime, she teaches vocal technique and stage performance to students and still hopes to perform again. She also leads a local Ukrainian ensemble called Otava that has 10 singers and is planning to release a Ukrainian album later this year.
At a Ukrainian rally near the Utah Capitol, she performed a song called “Free,” the same one she sang during the final of the competition in Ukraine. The lyrics go:
They said I’m weak, they said I’ll break like a twig.
I’m not afraid of these words, for I’m free, I’m free, I’m free, I’m free.
“My dream is here,” she said. “But what are you going to do with it? You dreamed up this egg, you laid it — and now you need to know what to do with it when it hatches, when it comes to life.”
She’s encountered the day-to-day challenges of starting over: finding a job, learning to get around, paying for car insurance and taxes. She picks up shifts as a substitute teacher in South Jordan.
“They’re such good kids — they give me compliments and are amazed that I’m from Ukraine,” she said.
She’s found respite in a Latter-day Saint Russian-speaking branch after a friend invited her to perform at a talent show. The brick wall as the centerpiece of the space, the organ — she felt at home in the old chapel in Salt Lake City.
“I knew this was my place,” Tymochko, who I’ve spoken to in Ukrainian, told me. She now serves as a chorister at church.
Looking back, Tymochko sees her second-place finish — falling just short of wider stardom — as a hidden blessing. “I gained the experience, but no one asked for anything in return. I remained free.”
Now she gets to choose the songs she sings, the photos she takes, the projects she joins. “And for me,” she said, “it’s very important to be free.”
