DJ U-RA (Yuriy Mykhalchuk) started DJing professionally in 2000 as a resident of the legendary Ultra club in Kyiv. In 2002 Ukrainian magazine “Afisha” highly praised DJ U-RA’s unique underground DJ sets: “…hip-hop, jazz-breakz and something unidentifiable are woven into the cods and gurgles of IDM”.
In 2001, during the heyday of lounge music, Yuriy Mykhalchuk as a club promoter organizes his first lounge parties for Partija Records, gathering the most refined and advanced audience.
Besides DJing and organizing parties, since 2002 U-RA started to work as a booking agent for foreign DJs: ATB (Germany), Chicane (England), Joachim Garraud (France), The Qemists (England), The Herbaliser (UK), Dr Kucho (Spain), Darude (Finland) and many others.
Thanks to Yuriy Mykhalchuk’s close ties with British promoters, the legendary Godskitchen festival was launched in Ukraine for the first time in 2005.
From 2006 to 2008 DJ U-RA’s program called FUNKFUSION was broadcasted on the waves of Ukrainian radio “Renaissance”. This unique and first-class mixture of funk, jazz, breakz has always gathered a refined and rich audience around the radios. To this day DJ U-RA performs his funkfusion sets at very expensive private parties organized all over the world from Marrakech to private islands in Maldives.
In 2008 by joint efforts of Eugene Yevtukhov (DJ Sender) and Yuriy Mykhalchuk the Ukrainian edition of DJ Magazine (Ukraine) – the world’s best electronic dance music magazine – was launched in Ukraine. Yuriy Mykhalchuk was the editor-in-chief of Ukrainian DJmag.
In 2011 Yuriy Mykhalchuk finishes writing the soundtrack for one of the most outstanding masterpieces of Ukrainian silent cinema, the psychological drama “Two Days” by Georgiy Stabovyy – the first Ukrainian movie (shot in 1920), recognized internationally and dubbed in 1932 by Borys Lyatoshynsky.
The premiere of the restored movie classic was successfully held in Odessa at the “Silent Nights” festival. On October 28, 2011, as part of the “Youth” movies festival, the movie “Two Days” with music by Yuriy Mykhalchuk was performed by the Kyiv Classic Orchestra at the Mystetskyy Arsenal.
In the same year 2011 Yuriy Mykhalchuk created and headed the Ukrainian booking agency for DJs cooperating with Kiss FM radio station. It also started all-Ukrainian festivals, timed to the annual celebration of Kiss FM birthday. More than two dozen cities across Ukraine in one night hold the largest parties with the best DJs under the aegis of Kiss FM Birthday. Later this tradition was transferred to another spring holiday – International DJ Day.