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Kucher, Mykhailo Stanislaw (September 27, 1924, village of Chornokintsi Velyki near Chortkiv, Halychyna - March 31, 2007, Edmonton, Canada) was born to the family of Petro and Maria (Mniendzybrodzka - Мнєндзибродзка [Mendzydrocka???]) Kucher. Arrived in Canada in 1952.

In 1960, he was one of the founders and a secretary of the Edmonton Branch of the Brotherhood of Former Soldiers of the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army (Stanycia Bratstva kolyshnikh voiakiv Pershoi ukrainskoi dyvizii Ukrainskoi natsionalnoi armii v Edmontoni). Later on, he became the head of the Edmonton branch of the organization and held this position for 12 years. He was also the head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress – Alberta Provincial Council. Worked as an electrical engineer.

Composer Fedir Akimenko (Yakymenko; b. 1876, Pisky, Ukraine, d. 1945, Paris, France), the older brother of composer Yakiv Stepovy, was recruited by the Imperial Court Chapel Choir in St. Petersburg at age 10. There he studied piano with Mily Balakirev and composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Anatoly Lyadov, graduating from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1900 or 1901. He subsequently taught at the Tbilisi School of Music, in Nice, his native Kharkiv, the Moscow Conservatory and the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where his pupils included Igor Stravinsky, and during which time he was an active member of the city’s Ukrainian Art and Literary Society. In 1924 he joined the faculty of the Drahomanov Ukrainian Pedagogical Institute in Prague, where he wrote the first Ukrainian textbook on counterpoint, harmony and theory. From 1928 onward he lived in France.

As a composer Akimenko is associated with the Symbolist movement. Although he is regarded primarily as a miniaturist, having composed more than 50 art songs, numerous solo piano pieces and works for chamber ensemble, he also wrote symphonic music, operas and ballets.

Composer, conductor and pianist Virko Baley (b. 1938, Radekhiv, Ukraine) spent his early childhood in Slovakia and at a displaced persons camp in Germany owing to the Second World War. His first music lessons took place at the camp with Roman Sawycky, although his music studies did not begin in earnest until after his family settled in Los Angeles in 1949. He completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano and composition at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. After military service with a U.S. Army band in Germany, he joined the faculty of his alma mater, renamed the California Institute of the Arts, in 1967. In 1970 he joined the faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Music, where he worked for the next 46 years. The founding music director of the Nevada Symphony Orchestra, he has conducted orchestras in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia.

Baley’s compositions include a symphony, a piano concerto, two violin concertos and other orchestral works, chamber pieces, compositions for solo piano, violin, oboe, bass clarinet, bassoon and contrabassoon, a one-act opera titled Hunger, about the Holodomor, and the score to Yuri Illienko’s film Swan Lake: The Zone. In 1996 Baley became the first American to receive Ukraine’s Shevchenko State Prize for music.

Composer, arranger, conductor and bandurist Peter Deriashnyj (b. 1946, Calden, Germany) emigrated to Australia with his family in 1950 and completed an engineering degree from the Sydney Institute of Technology. He began studying the bandura with his father at age 10 and in childhood was exposed to Ukrainian church music at his local parish. Initially self-taught, he later pursued private studies in music theory and composition, as well as the playing of Kharkiv-style bandura in Sydney. He has conducted several Ukrainian choirs and ensembles in Australia. His works include numerous arrangements for chorus with bandura accompaniment and original choral compositions for liturgical use. He has also produced standardized vocal scores of liturgical music for use in Ukrainian Orthodox parishes in Australia.

Composer George Fiala (b. 1922, Kyiv, Ukraine, d. 2017, Montreal, Canada) was born into a family of amateur musicians, and he enrolled in a preparatory school for the Kyiv Conservatory in 1934. He subsequently studied at the Kyiv Conservatory with Borys Liatoshynsky and Lev Revutsky, received his doctorate from the Akademische Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he studied with Wilhelm Furtwängler, and completed post-doctoral studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels. In 1949 he settled in Montreal.

As a composer, Fiala combined the traditions of Ukrainian music, German Neo-Romanticism and the twelve-tone techniques of the New French School. He produced more than 150 works, including symphonies, concertos for piano, violin and flute, quintets, quartets, trios and sonatas for strings and winds, solo piano works, choral pieces, art songs, an operetta, a ballet and a liturgy. His works have been performed by virtually every orchestra in Canada, and commissions on Ukrainian subjects constitute an important part of his output.

Composer, conductor and music critic Mykola Fomenko (b. 1894, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, d. 1961, New York, USA) was raised in a large family by a widowed father, who encouraged his son to pursue a “practical” profession. Fomenko began studying piano only at age 17. During the First World War he fought in the Caucasus. In 1929 he graduated from the Kharkiv Conservatory, where he studied composition and conducting. He was music director and conductor of the Kharkiv Music and Drama Theatre, until he was dismissed for refusing the join the Communist Party. Subsequently he worked at the Mystetstvo publishing house. Following the Second World War he was a displaced person in Europe until he immigrated to the United States in 1951. There he taught at the Ukrainian Music Institute of America in New York and worked for the Ukrainian section of Voice of America.

His output as a composer consists of more than 100 works, including two symphonies, a piano concerto, chamber works for strings, solo piano pieces, several operas, incidental music, choral works and art songs.

Composer and violinist Michael Hayvoronsky (b. 1892, Zalishchyky, Ukraine, d. 1949, New York, USA) received his first music lessons from the church choir conductor in his native village. He subsequently studied music education at a teaching seminary and violin at the Lysenko Music Institute in Lviv. During the First World War he enlisted in the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. After the war he worked as a music teacher in Lviv and as a choral conductor. Following his emigration to the United States in 1923 he continued his studies at Columbia University and co-founded the Ukrainian Music Conservatory in New York with Roman Prydatkevytch.

The majority of Hayvoronsky’s compositions are for voice: songs, choral arrangements and sacred choral works. He also composed tone poems for orchestra, music for brass band, incidental music and chamber pieces.

Composer and conductor Andrij Hnatyschyn (b. 1906, Chyzhykiv, Ukraine, d. 1995, Vienna, Austria) studied at the Ukrainian Academic Gymnasium in Lviv, the Lviv Theological Academy and the Lysenko Music Institute. He worked for the Prosvita educational society in villages near Lviv. Awarded a scholarship by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, he continued his music studies at the Neues Wiener Konservatorium and graduated in 1934. From 1931 until the Nazi occupation of Austria, Hnatyschyn directed the choir of St. Barbara’s Ukrainian Catholic church in Vienna. He spent part of the Second World War in Berlin, where he conducted the choir of the local Ukrainian Catholic parish. Following the war he returned to Vienna, and from 1954 until the end of his life he again directed the choir of St. Barbara’s, which was the center of Ukrainian cultural life in the city. Hnatyschyn used the choir as a platform for promoting Ukrainian music, particularly through recordings and performances on Austrian radio. Beginning in the 1990s he was able to travel once again to Ukraine, and in 1994 the Liatoshynsky Chamber Choir gave a concert of his works in Kyiv. At the time Hnatyschyn also began transferring his archive to the Vernadsky National Library.

Hnatyschyn was primarily a composer of sacred music, including numerous liturgies and cantatas. He also produced orchestral suites, an opera, chamber pieces for violin and piano, a piano trio and string quartet, and choral arrangements.

Composer and pianist Wadym Kipa (b. 1912, Kuchmisterska Slobodka, Ukraine, d. 1968, New York, USA) was born into the family of a railway inspector, who encouraged his son’s interest in music. Kipa trained at the Kharkiv Music School, Kharkiv Conservatory and Kyiv Conservatory, from which he graduated as a piano major in 1937 and joined its faculty. Until 1941 he performed as a concert pianist. When the Second World War interrupted his post-doctoral studies at the Kyiv Conservatory, he turned to composing. During the war he found himself in Berlin, where he taught at the Klindwort-Scharwenk Conservatory. In 1951 he settled in New York, where he engaged in composing and teaching. His compositions in a Neo-Romantic style consist primarily of solo piano pieces, art songs and incidental music.

Composer Marian Kouzan (b. 1925, Isai, Ukraine, d. 2005, Fremont, France) moved to France at a very young age and began music lessons at the age of eight. In 1945 the entered the Paris Conservatory and graduated in 1948. He supported himself by taking various positions in the music entertainment industry and wrote music in popular music genres. Kouzan considered the 1960s to be the beginning of his composing career, which combined music for stage, and film and television soundtracks for the “show business” industry, as well as a wide variety of instrumental music for unusual combinations of instruments, with an emphasis on brass and percussion. Many of his works had Ukrainian themes, including the soundtrack to a documentary film about artist Jacques Hnizdovsky, the oratorios Neofity and Poslaniie to texts by Taras Shevchenko and the Chornobyl Requiem to a text by Vasyl Barka.

Composer and conductor Gary Kulesha (b. 1954, Toronto, Canada) studied piano, music theory and composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He later studied composition with John McCabe in London and John Corigliano in New York. As a conductor he is largely self-taught. Kulesha has worked as composer in residence at the Stratford Festival, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company, and as composer-advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Since 1991 he has been on the music faculty of the University of Toronto. Kulesha’s output includes three symphonies, concertos for violin, cello, winds and brass, numerous orchestral pieces, chamber works for strings, winds, brass and percussion, solo piano works, two operas, art songs, choral works and incidental music. He is married to composer Larysa Kuzmenko.

Composer and pianist Larysa Kuzmenko (b. 1956, Mississauga, Canada) studied piano and composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and composition at the University of Toronto. She began performing as a pianist in 1972, while still in high school. She has taught piano, music theory, harmony and music history through the Royal Conservatory of Music since 1981 and at the University of Toronto since 1989. Kuzmenko began composing in the late 1970s, and her works include three piano concertos, a cello concerto, a cello sonata, chamber music for string quartet, winds, brass, percussion and accordion, works for solo piano and organ, song cycles and choral works. She has been a frequent collaborator of the Vesnivka Choir of Toronto and her works on Ukrainian themes include In Memoriam: To the Victims of Chornobyl for solo piano, “A Journey to a New Life” for string quartet, the oratorio The Golden Harvest and “Holy God” for a cappella choir. She is married to composer Gary Kulesha.

Composer, conductor and bandurist Hryhory Kytasty (b. 1907, Kobeliaky, Ukraine, d. 1984, San Diego, USA) came from a peasant family. His childhood coincided with the First World War, the rise and fall of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the rise of Bolshevism and the imposition of collectivization. He studied vocal and choral music at the Poltava Music College and choral conducting at the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute in Kyiv, where he also studied the bandura. He sang in the Kyiv Opera Chorus and in 1934 joined the Kyiv Bandura Cappella, which subsequently became the State Bandura Cappella. During the Second World War the Cappella made its way to Germany, and after several years in displaced persons camps, Kytasty emigrated to the United States and settled in Detroit in 1949. There he immediately founded the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, which he directed until 1958 and again from 1967 until his death. In 2008 he was named Hero of Ukraine posthumously. Kytasty composed more than 200 works, primarily for voice, chorus and bandura. In particular he was noted for the epic dumas he composed for male chorus and bandura ensemble.

Composer and conductor Zenoby Lawryshyn (b. 1943, Rudnyky, Ukraine, d. 2017, Toronto, Canada) came from a priestly family that left Ukraine during the Second World War. After several years in displaced persons camps in Austria and Germany, the family settled in Toronto in 1949. There he began private piano lessons with Lev Tyrkevych and Lubka Kolessa, before graduating from the Royal Conservatory of Music in 1961. In the mid-1960s he spent a year studying in Paris, before completing a degree in composition from the University of Toronto. Lawryshyn spent most of his career conducting Ukrainian-Canadian choirs, and as a result he composed primarily for voice and chorus, including 30 pieces for male chorus, two liturgies, a panakhyda, three cantatas and several song cycles for chorus. He also composed works for string ensemble, a string quartet, woodwind quintet and two piano trios. In addition, he arranged Ukrainian songs and carols for chamber instrumental ensembles.

Composer and scholar Zenowij Lysko (b. 1895, Rakobuty, Ukraine, d. 1969, New York, USA) laid the foundations of Ukrainian musicology in the United States. Born into a priestly family, he studied philosophy at Lviv University and piano and theory with Stanyslav Liudkevych at the Lysenko Music Institute. Drafted into the Austrian army during World War I, he joined the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen following the war. He continued his studies at the Lviv Underground Ukrainian University and the Lysenko Institute, as well as studying composition privately with Vasyl Barvinsky. He later enrolled in Charles University in Prague, where he also studied privately with Fedir Akimenko. During this period he became interested in folklore and ethnomusicology. He taught music at the Drahomanov Ukrainian Pedagogical Institute in Prague (1924-29), graduated from the State Conservatory of Czechoslovakia in 1927 and obtained his doctorate from the Ukrainian Free University in Prague in 1928. He taught at the Kharkiv Conservatory, the Stryi Branch of the Lysenko Higher Institute of Music, the Lviv Conservatory and was editor-in-chief of the journal Ukraïns'ka muzyka. After the Second World War he lived in Germany, before settling in New York in 1960, where he taught at the Ukrainian Music Institute from 1961 until his death.

As a composer, he was most active during his Prague period, completing an orchestral suite, string quartet, piano sonata, song cycles and arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs. As a scholar, he collected 1,400 Ukrainian folk songs, which were published in ten volumes. He also amassed a substantial archive.

Composer and pianist Yuriy Oliynyk (b. 1931, Ternopil, Ukraine) was born into the family of an attorney and began music lessons at an early age. During the Second World War his family fled to Austria and later Germany, before settling in Cleveland in 1950. He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music as a pianist in 1956 and completed a master’s degree in musicology and composition from Case Western Reserve University in 1959. Oliynyk became an active performer of piano works by Ukrainian composers and a pioneer of compositions for bandura and symphony orchestra. His output includes five bandura concertos, a piano concerto, piano sonata and other piano works.