Sonevytsky, Ihor

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.