Ukrainian composer and teacher (1938–2020)
Myroslav Mykhailovych Skoryk (; 13 July 1938 – 1 June 2020) was a Ukrainian composer and teacher. His music is contemporary in style and contains stylistic traits from Ukrainian folk music traditions.
Skoryk was awarded the titles People's Artist of Ukraine and Hero of Ukraine.
Early life.
Myroslav Mykhailovych Skoryk was born in Lviv, on 13 July 1938. His parents were both educated in Austria at the University of Vienna, and subsequently became teachers. His father was a historian and an ethnographer, while his mother was a chemist. Although his parents did not have special musical training, his mother played piano and his father played the violin. Skoryk was exposed to music in the household from an early age, and his great aunt was the Ukrainian soprano Solomiya Krushelnytska.
Skoryk entered the Lviv Music School in 1945, but two years later his family were deported to Siberia, where he grew up. The family did not return to Lviv until 1955.
Student years.
Between 1955 and 1960 Skoryk studied at the Lviv Conservatory, There he received training in musical composition and music theory; his teachers included Stanyslav Lyudkevych and Roman Simovych. Skoryk's final exam piece was ('Spring'), a cantata for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra that was based on verses by the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko. Other piano pieces written during Skoryk's student years include a piano sonata, and ('In the Carpathian Mountains'), also for solo piano.
In 1960, Skoryk enrolled in the postgraduate research program at the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with the composer Dmitry Kabalevsky. He remained there for four years. During this time, Skoryk composed symphonic, chamber, and vocal music . Some works from this period include the "Suite in D major for Strings", the Violin Sonata No. 1, and the Partita No. 1 for strings, and the "Variations", "Blues", and "Burlesque".
Teaching career.
After graduating from the Moscow Conservatory in 1964, Skoryk, then 25, began his first teaching position, becoming Ukraine's youngest composition lecturer at the Lviv Conservatory, where he remained until 1966. He then accepted a position at the Kyiv Conservatory where he focused on teaching contemporary harmony techniques. His dissertation, completed in 1964, concentrated on the music of the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. Skoryk's book ("The Structural Aspects of Chords in 20th Century Music") was published in 1983. His students included the composers Osvaldas Balakauskas, Ivan Karabyts and Yevhen Stankovych. Skoryk remained at the Kyiv Conservatory until 1988.
In 1963, Skoryk became the youngest member of the National Union of Composers of Ukraine. During his career, Skoryk was an active member of the union, and was co-chair with Stankovych from 2004 to 2010.
Later years.
In 1996, Skoryk moved with his family to Australia, and obtained Australian citizenship, but in 1999 returned to live in Ukraine. In April 2011, Skoryk was appointed as the artistic director of the Kyiv Opera, a position he held until 2016. He died on 1 June 2020.
Music.
Skoryk was a composer, pianist and conductor. His works have been performed by ensembles and soloists that include the Leontovych Quartet, Oleh Krysa, Volodymyr Vynnytsky, Oleg Chmyr, Mykola Suk, Victor Markiw, and Alexander Slobodyanik. He was one of the recipients of the Ukraine's Shevchenko National Prize in 1987 for his Cello Concerto. In addition to the works listed below, he also wrote a number of smaller ensemble works, songs, and the score for more than 40 films, including "Tini zabutykh predkiv" ("Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors"), and "Vysokyy pereval" ("High Mountain Pass"), which included his "Melody in A minor".
Skoryk moved towards composing religious music at the end of the 20th century, these compositions include his spiritual concerto "Requiem" (1999); "Psalms for various types of choirs" (1999–2005); and the "Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom" (2005). According to the Ukrainian musicologist Liubov Kyianovska, who has written a biography of Skoryk, his spiritual compositions were "not a tribute to fashion", but "a quite natural consequence of long internal work" and the "resolution of the long process of the composer's creative evolution", and that the "Liturgy" is stylistically sensitive to the traditions of Ukrainian religious music.
Skoryk's religious opera "Moses" (2001) was the first Ukrainian opera on a biblical subject to be composed in nearly a century. The opera, which was premiered during the visit by Pope John Paul II to Ukraine in 2001, is based on a 1905 poem by Ivan Franko, which focuses upon Moses's struggles to lead his people into the Promised Land at the very end of his life; the text draws parallels between the sufferings of the Israelites and those of the people of Ukraine under the Soviets.
Works.
"Data from Ukrainian Musicians and the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine."
The following is an incomplete list of works by Skoryk:
References.
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