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Kost’ Telychko was born in Ohiltsi village, Kharkiv region on May 27, 1907 to the family of Mykhailo and Tetiana Telychko (nee Tymchenko). In 1927 he graduated from the Institute of National Economy. In 1931, he was imprisoned, after getting out of jail, he managed to build a successful career.

By the end of WWII, Telychko lived in Austria, working on construction and Austrian farms. In 1945 he moved to Germany and lived first in Karsfeld DP camp; when the camp was closed in spring 1946, he moved to Mittenwald DP camp, Germany. While in Karsfeld, Telychko became a secretary of the newly founded Ukrainian National State Union organization (Український Нац. Державний Союз). After relocating to the Mittenwald camp, Telychko was elected as the organization's head and participated in all its conventions in 1946, 1947 and 1949.

Telychko arrived in Canada on June 10, 1949, and settled in Edmonton. The same year he became a Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church member. In September 1949, he also joined the Edmonton division of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and remained its member for 22 years. He was also a member of the Ukrainian Self-Reliance Association where in 1950 he served as elected secretary. Telychko worked towards the founding of the Committee for the Ukrainian National Council (Комітет Сприяння Українській Народній Раді), was its secretary for many years and, later, the head of the initiative.

On November 1956 Telychko initiated a radio broadcasts in Edmonton. By 1982 over 381 programs were aired through the CKUA Radio Network. Majority of the programs were written by Kost' Telychko.

He often was elected a convention delegate. On July 6, 1960, he delivered a main speech at the USRL/CYC Convention in Toronto. In the 1970s and 1980s, he also worked as an advisor and journalist, taught at the Ukrainian Saturday school (Рідна школа), was an author of radio broadcasts and newspaper articles. Kost’ Telychko was awarded the Shevchenko medal and many scrolls of honour. He died on April 23, 1999, in Edmonton, Alberta.

Mykhailo Holynsky (January 2, 1890 - December 1, 1973) was born in Verbivtsi village, Halychyna (now Horodenkivskyi rayon, Ivano-Frankivska oblast). He graduated from the faculty of law at the University of Kamianets-Podilsky and as a person gifted with a unique voice started taking singing classes. Prof. Cieslaw Zaremba was his first tutor for two years in Lviv. After that Holynsky became a student of prof. Edoard Garbin of Milan, once a leading tenor of “La Scala” opera, who “polished Holynsky’s operatic studies.” In 1925, after four years of training, Holynsky made his debut in “Il Pagliacci,” in Lviv Opera, singing the part of Canio. With this performance he started a long period of tours and concerts in Europe that lasted till 1938. In 1927 he accepted an invitation to work at the Kharkiv State Opera and was premier tenor with the state opera houses in Berlin, Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Lviv, Warsaw, and Moscow. He also performed with great success in concert tours at the Vienna’s concert hall “Konzerthaussal” and the Praha “Smetana Hall”.

In December 1838 Holynsky made his debut in Canada at the Eaton’s Auditorium, Toronto and then pursued his tour to Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Montreal. He concluded his tour to North America with appearances in several operas in Philadelphia and New York city.

Holynsky planned to return to Ukraine however with the start of WWII he remained in Canada and lived in Toronto and Edmonton. Holynsky performed in several languages including German, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, and Slovac. He also knew French and English. He passed away on December 1, 1973 in Edmonton.

Peter John Lazarowich, Ukrainian Canadian lawyer and community leader was born in a village of Bereziv, Kolomyia povit (later Pechenizynskyi povit, Germ. Bezirk Peczeniżyn, Pol. Powiat Peczeniżyński), Eastern Halychyna, Austro-Hungary, on December 28, 1900. He came to Canada with his parents, siblings and other relatives in 1903.

He was raised on a farm in the Province of Saskatchewan, fifty miles south of Prince Albert. He completed his Public School education in his own community and then proceeded to Saskatoon where he completed High School and Teachers College. He taught school for several years in various parts of Saskatchewan, and then entered the University of Saskatchewan, Faculty of Arts, and graduated with a B.A. degree in 1927. That same year he married Miss Thelma Radyk, also a school teacher, and shortly afterward they moved to Edmonton, where they resided for the rest of their lives.

In 1931, Lazarowich graduated from the University of Alberta with a degree of L.L.C. and was admitted to the Bar of Alberta on October 15th, 1932. On the same day he left for Europe to take a postgraduate course in Slavonic History and Literature at the Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He remained there throughout the winter of 1932 and spring 1933 attending both the Charles University and Free Ukrainian University located there. After completing his courses, he travelled widely in Central Europe (Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania and Germany). During this trip he visited Halychyna. Afterwards, he also took a trip to England and Scotland and while there read a paper before the Royal Institute of International Affairs on conditions in Ukraine. Upon returning to Canada in the fall of 1933, he commenced the practice of law and has been practicing law until his retirement.

He was named Queen’s Council in 1948. He was the President of the Edmonton Bar Association and member of the executive of the Edmonton Junior Chamber of Commerce. He was active in the Liberal Party for many years and was a member of the executive of the Edmonton Liberal Association in various capacities. He was one of the Liberal candidates in the City of Edmonton in two Provincial elections.

In addition to those activities, he took an active part in the community life of Edmonton. He was a Chairman of the Edmonton Public Library Board, a President of the Scona Home and School Association, and during the years 1951-1952, he was a President of the Men’s Canadian Club of Edmonton.

In his Ukrainian-Canadian community, he was an influential individual in the Ukrainian Self-Reliance League / Союз Українців Самостійників (USRL/CYC) family organization, and one of the founders of USRL/CYC in 1927. From 1936 to 1940 Peter Lazarowich was the President of USRL/CYC National Executive. In 1958-1963 he was the National President of USRA/TYC (Товариство Українців Самостійників) and SUND (Союз Українських Народних Домів). He was a President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress - Edmonton (UCC), a member of the Order of St. Andrew and St. John’s Institute and a founding member of the Ukrainian Professional Businessmen’s Club of Edmonton.

In his church community he was a member of the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John in Edmonton, legal representative for his cathedral and a member of the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church (UGOC) of Canada Consistory Board from 1954 to 1970, choir conductor and a cathedral delegate at all the Ordinary and Extra-Ordinary Sobors of the UGOC of Canada.

As a result of his contributions to the Ukrainian community he received the following recognitions:
• Honorary member of St. John’s Cathedral
• Shevchenko medal from UCC National
• Honorary Certificate from the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church of Canada
• Honorary Certificate from the Ukrainian Self-Reliance League of Canada
• Honorary member of the Ukrainian Professional Businessmen’s Club of Edmonton.

Peter John Lazarowich passed away in Edmonton on May 15, 1983.

Michael Luchkovich was born on November 13, 1892, in the mining town of Shamokin, Pennsylvania, USA. His father Ephraim and mother Maria migrated from the Lemko region of Ukraine to the USA in 1887. Unlike an older sister (he had three in all and one brother), he grew up with poor knowledge of Ukrainian until after his move to Canada in 1907. In the Autumn of that year, he enrolled in courses at Manitoba college, an affiliate at the University of Manitoba, as a grade 11 student. Later, he obtained a degree in political sciences at that university and in the process met with other 'firsts' in Canadian Ukrainian history: Jaroslaw William Arsenych, the first Ukrainian lawyer and judge; Orest Zerebko, the first Ukrainian Bachelor of Arts; Fred Hawryluk, the first Inspector of Schools; and Gregory Novak, the first Ukrainian doctor.

In 1917 he received a First Class Teacher's diploma from the Calgary Normal School and taught in districts heavily populated by Ukrainians in East-Central Alerta. In 1926 he was nominated as the United Farmers of Alberta candidate for the Vegreville federal riding and was elected by a substantial majority on September 14. He served two terms in Parliament (1926-1935) and joined the coterie of 'firsts' by becoming Canada's first federal MP of Ukrainian origin. The highlight of his parliamentary career came when he was appointed the only Canadian (and British) delegate to the Inter-Parliamentary Congress in Bucharest in 1931. After his tenure in office, Luchkovich, who had begun learning Ukrainian by keeping a nite-nook of Ukrainian phrases and idioms, had mastered the language well enough to be able to turn his attention to translating. In this regard. he is best remembered for his translation of Illia Kiriak's classic novel "Sons of the Soil." Having settled down in Edmonton, Luchkovich remained very active in local Ukrainian community affairs. A firm believer in multiculturalism, he helped prepare a brief on behalf of the Edmonton Branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee to the Commission of Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1964. In 1965, he wrote his biography "A Ukrainian Canadian in Parliament: Memoirs of Michael Luchkovich" (Toronto: Ukrainian Canadian Research Foundation, 1965). Mr. Luchkovich died on April 21, 1973, and was survived by his wife Sophie (nee Nikiforuk), two sons, Myron Lusk and Denis, and a daughter Mrs. Carol Brown.

The biography is written by Serge Cipko:
Cipko, Serge. Michael Luchkovich Collection (Research Report N 49). Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, University of Alberta,1992.

Composer, arranger, conductor, ethnographer and educator Alexander Koshetz (b. 1875, Romashky, Ukraine, d. 1944, Winnipeg, Canada) was born into a priestly family and studied at the Kyiv Academy and the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute. Koshetz began conducting choirs while still a student and directed the choirs of the Lysenko Institute, Kyiv University and the Kyiv Conservatory. He also worked at Mykola Sadovky’s Ukrainian Theatre and the Kyiv Opera House. In 1919, at the directive of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, he became co-founder and chief conductor of the Ukrainian Republican Cappella, which toured Europe and the Americas with the aim of introducing the world to Ukraine. Kozhetz produced large numbers of a cappella choral arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs. He also introduced American audiences to Mykola Leontovych’s “Shchedryk.” Following the fall of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Koshetz settled in the United States. While living in the diaspora, he composed most of his liturgical music. From 1941 to 1944 he led annual choral conducting courses in Winnipeg. He also began developing a music curriculum for the Ukrainian diaspora, writing a history of Ukrainian choral music and produced a recording project on the Ukrainian choral tradition.

Author of the “Composers of the Ukrainian Diaspora” articles, Taras Filenko has degrees in ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh (PhD, 1998) and Historical Musicology from the Ukrainian National Academy of Music (Kand. Nayk, 1989). From 1998 to the present, he has been on the faculty of the Duquesne University, City Music Center, Studio Piano, Core Musicianship. His publications include Світ Миколи Лисенка, UVAN, NY, 2009 (409 pp.), The World of Mykola Lysenko, Ukraine Millennium Foundation, Edmonton, 2001 (540 pp.), Yakiv Yatsenevych and His Time, in progress, UVAN, NY, (110pp.).

Jaroslaw Iwanusiw (July 24, 1905, currently non-existent Ukrainian village of Lopinka, territory of contemporary Poland - April 26, 1998, Edmonton) was born to the family of Mykola and Maria (Shyh) Iwanusiw. He was the third of five children. He completed his schooling as well as one year of theology in Peremyshl and then earned a degree in forestry engineering at the University of Vienna.
In 1931, he married Iwanna Oksana Smolynsky and began work in Stanislaviv. Following the outbreak of the war in 1939, the family moved several times within Europe, meeting up with American soldiers in Bavaria on Easter Sunday, 1945. They stayed in Pfarkirchen and Karsfeld and then Camp "Orlyk" Berchtesgaden. Their family then had four children: Motria, Oleh, Orysia, and Bohodara.
The family immigrated to Canada in 1948 to work out a sugar beet contract in the Lethbridge area. With the contract fulfilled, the family moved to Lethbridge and then, in 1950, to Edmonton where Jerry worked as a carpenter until 1956 when he obtained a position of an Alberta Land Surveyor at the Government of Alberta in the Surveys Branch of the Department of Highways. He continued his career with the government until compulsory retirement at age 65 in 1970. In that period, his survey work was primarily in the Peace River region of rights-of-ways for highways and local roads.
Following retirement from the government, Jerry chose to continue in the surveying and mapping field in the capacity of a technologist, working for the Canadian Engineering & Surveys Inc. until 1987, and then for the Challenger Surveys and Services Ltd. until 1995. He was an active member of Plast (since 1921 in Peremyshl), a founding member of the Association of Foresters and Woodmen, a member of the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada, a founder of the Shevchenko Foundation in Canada, a representative of the "Encyclopedia of Ukraine" dissemination in Alberta, and a treasurer of the Patronage NTSh-EY-2 in Edmonton.
For his years of dedicated service, he was cited with both the silver and gold awards of the highest merit. In his 90th year of life, Yaroslaw and Iwanna moved to St. Michael's Lodge and then a nursing home.

Sources:
Compiled By C.W. Youngs with assistance from Motria, Oleh, Orysia, and Bohodara (http://albertalandsurveyhistory.ca/index.php?title=Yaroslaw_(Jerry)_Iwanusiw)
Materials of the Jaroslaw Iwanusiw collection. UF2020.028.

Gregory Turko (February 11, 1888 - March 10, 1977, Edmonton, Alberta) was born “in one of the Carpathian Villages” to a family of Ivan and Anastasia Turko. Gregory went to the Ukrainian Gimnasium in Peremyshl. In 1915, he married Maria Horodetska. Turko worked for the tobacco industry. He fought in WWI and WWII.

Turko immigrated to Canada after WWII through the German camps of Displaced Persons and settled in Calgary. After his wife passed away, he moved to Edmonton, where in 1967, he married Ksenia Shklanka. Turko was a member of the Edmonton Branch of the Brotherhood of Former Soldiers of the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army (Станиця Братства колишніх вояків Першої української дивізії Української національної армії в Едмонтоні) and Ukrainian War Veterans Association of Canada.

Source:
Турко, Ксеня. “Спомин про бл. П. Григорія Турка.” Ukrainian News, april 21, 1977, p. 6.

Composer Stefania Turkewich-Lukianowicz (b. 1898, Lviv, Ukraine, d. 1977, Cambridge, United Kingdom) was born into a priestly family active in Ukrainian choral music. She studied in Lviv, in Vienna with Guido Adler, in Berlin with Arnold Schoenberg and in Prague with Zdeněk Nejedlý and Vitězslav Novák. She taught theory, musicology and composition at the Lysenko Music Institute in Lviv, Lviv University and the Lviv Institute of Folk Art. In 1944 she fled Ukraine and settled in the United Kingdom in 1946. Her music combined elements of traditional Ukrainian music with the avant-garde compositional techniques of the Second Viennese School, making her the most experimental and innovative Ukrainian composer of her generation, and also Ukraine’s first professional woman composer. Her output includes seven symphonies, four children’s operas, five ballets, chamber music, solo piano music, art songs and sacred choral music, some of which was lost during the Second World War and little of which has been published.

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.

Composer and musicologist Wasyl Wytwycky (b. 1905, Kolomyiia, Ukraine, d. 1999, Summit, USA) was born into a family of teachers spent part of his childhood in Prague. He studied at the Kolomyiia Gymnasium, the Lviv (Underground) Ukrainian University and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he completed a doctorate in 1932. He taught at the Music Institute in Przemyśl and worked for the Ukrainian Publishing Institute in Lviv. During the Second World War he moved to Austria. Following the war, he lived in a displaced persons camp in Bavaria, before immigrating to the United States and settling in Detroit in 1949.

As a composer Wytwycky was interested primarily in chamber music, composing works for string quartet, piano trio and four-hands piano, as well as choral arrangements, incidental music and a ballet. Wytwycky published over 250 musicological articles and wrote monographs about composers Michael Hayvoronsky and Maksym Berezovsky.

Composer and musicologist Ihor Sonevytsky (b. 1926, Halynkivtsi, Ukraine, d. 2006, Lexington, USA) was born into the family of a philologist, writer and teacher, and a journalist, art gallery manager and amateur singer. He studied at the Lysenko Music Institute and the First Ukrainian High School in Lviv. Later he studied at the Vienna Music Academy and graduated from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Munich with a degree in composition and conducting. Following his arrival in New York, he was among the founders of the Ukrainian Music Institute of America in 1952, and following the death of Roman Sawycky in 1960, Sonevytsky became its director. He completed a doctorate from the Ukrainian Free University in Munich in 1961 and was a visiting lecturer of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome. Sonevytsky’s extensive experience conducting Ukrainian-American choirs resulted in him composing many sacred and secular choral works, and owing to his work with the Ukrainian Stage Ensemble in New York, incidental music became the dominant genre in his output. He also composed an opera, a ballet version of Cinderella, chamber works for winds, solo piano compositions and many art songs. Sonevytsky wrote a monograph about composer Artem Vedel.

Composer and violinist Roman Prydatkevytch (b. 1895, Żywiec, Poland, d. 1980, Owensboro, USA) was born into the family of a painter and sculptor and received his initial education at the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian School in Yavoriv and at the Ukrainian Academic Gymnasium and the Lysenko Music Institute in Lviv. He continued his studies at the Vienna Music Academy and the faculty of law of the University of Vienna. During the First World War he was drafted into the Austrian army and fought on the Italian front. Following the war he joined the Ukrainian Galician Army and was later Kyrylo Stetsenko’s assistant as director of music for the Ukrainian armed forces. He worked at the Institute of Public Education in Odesa and the Odesa Theatrical Institute. He was forced to emigrate in 1922 and settled in New York in 1923. With Michael Hayvoronsky he founded the Ukrainian Conservatory of Music in 1924. Prydatkevytch continued his music studies at Columbia University, the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the College of Music in New York, the Julliard School and the Eastman School of Music, and received a master’s degree in composition from the University of Minnesota and a doctorate from the Ukrainian Free University. In 1930 he organized the Ukrainian Trio in New York, and he was a conductor at the American Chamber Orchestra. From 1946 until 1965 he taught at the Murray State University of Kentucky, and from 1967 until 1971 at the Kentucky Wesleyan College.

Prydatkevytch’s compositions include three symphonies, the Ukrainian Suite for chamber orchestra and harp, Ukrainian Rhapsody for violin and orchestra, a string quartet, three violin sonatas, solo piano works and art songs. He wrote one of the first English-language histories of Ukrainian music. His grandson is conductor and violist Theodore Kuchar, who was previously chief conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

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.

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 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, 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.