Prydatkevytch, Roman

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.