Item UF1991.011.g366 - Spomyn z Hir / Persha snizynka

Olena Hlibowych was the artistic director of Verkhovyna Vocal Ensemble from its inception in 1952.

Composer Wasyl Bezkorowajnyj (b. 1880, Ternopil, Ukraine, d. 1966, Buffalo, USA) was born into a middle-class family and was exposed to music in childhood through singing in a church choir and playing the organ. He studied at the Ternopil Gymnasium, Ternopil Teacher’s Seminary and the Lviv Conservatory. He worked with the Boyan Choral Society in Ternopil, Lviv and Stanislav, organized branches of the Lysenko Music Institute in Ternopil and Zolochiv, and worked as music director of the Ukrainian Discourse Theatre. In 1944 he migrated to Austria, then Bohemia, and in 1949 he emigrated to the United States, settling in Buffalo, where he taught at the local branch of the Ukrainian Music Institute. His collaboration with poet Leonid Poltava was especially productive, resulting in song cycles and a children’s operetta. In all, Bezkorowajnyj composed some 350 pieces, primarily art songs, choral works and incidental music, much of which was intended for amateur performers.