Myroslav Skoryk (1938-2020)
Yesterday, I learned of the passing of Myroslav Skoryk, the beloved Ukrainian composer, conductor, educator, and musicologist. Skoryk passed away on June 1, 2020 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Myroslav Skoryk was extremely prolific; in addition to a great number of works for orchestra, small ensemble, and film, he had written seven violin concerti, two violin sonatas, as well as many short works for the violin. No other Ukrainian composer has contributed this generously to the Ukrainian violin repertoire.
I’ve uploaded my performance of his most famous compositional offering, the gorgeous “Melody” from the film “The High Pass” (Високий Перевал):
Skoryk was a major figure during my doctoral research. Here is a short excerpt from my 2013 dissertation, “Cornerstones of the Ukrainian violin repertoire; 1870 – present day:” (click link for whole .pdf)
Myroslav Skoryk (1938-)
Myroslav Skoryk enjoys great popularity in Ukraine today. He was born into an artistic family in the western ukrainian city of L´viv. When he was a young child, his family was deported to Siberia. Upon their return in 1955, Skoryk enrolled at the Lysenko Conservatory in L´viv to study composition with Lyudkevych. After four years at the Moscow Conservatory with Dmitri Kabelevsky (1960-64), Skoryk joined the class of Lyatoshyns´kyj at the Kyiv Conservatory from 1966 until Lyatoshyns´kyj's death in 1968. He remained at the Conservatory for a decade, teaching other Ukrainian composers including Ivan Karabyts´ and Yevhen Stankovych. In 1987, he returned to L´viv to head the faculty of composition at the L´viv Conservatory and the L´viv chapter of the Association of Ukrainian Composers.
Unlike many of his colleagues in Kyiv in the 1960s, Skoryk never showed any tendency towards the avant-garde. Instead, his compositional influences came largely from Ukrainian folk music, particularly of the Carpathian Mountain (Hutsul) region of Western Ukraine, and from classical and contemporary forms. His compositional output has been broken down into many stylistic periods by his major biographer Kyianovs´ka; however, his usage of Carpathian folk music elements in his music transcends these classifications, and I believe that Skoryk's writing is the natural continuation of the Lysenkovian aesthetic and tradition, a style dubbed by Kyianovs´ka the “New Folklorique Wave.”
Myroslav Skoryk is extremely prolific; in addition to a great number of works for orchestra, small ensemble, and film, he has written seven violin concerti, two violin sonatas, as well as many short works for the violin. No other Ukrainian composer has contributed this generously to the Ukrainian violin repertoire. In addition to composing, Skoryk heads the department of composition at the L´viv Conservatory, and maintains an active career as a conductor, pianist, and musicologist.
In Ukrainian:
Помер український композитор, музикознавець, керівник Мирослав Скорик
https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2020/06/1/7254078/
https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/features-52699625