Yevhen Stankovych: Ukrainian Poem

Yevhen Stankovych (born September 19, 1942) is a contemporary Ukrainian composer of stage, orchestral, chamber, and choral works whose music has been performed around the globe. Among his composition teachers were two of Ukraine’s most significant 20th century composers–Boris Lyatoshynsky and Myroslav Skoryk–with whom he studied at the Kyiv Conservatory from 1965 to 1970. He has worked as a music editor since 1988 and, since 1998, as a professor of composition in the Kyiv Conservatory, now the National Music Academy of Ukraine. From 2004–2010, he was the chairman of the National Union of Composers of Ukraine and in 2017, he headed the Organizing Committee of the All-Ukrainian Open Music Olympiad “The Voice of The Country.” Stankovych’s works include twelve symphonies, five ballets, one opera, instrumental concertos, chamber and film music. His folk-opera-ballet When the Fern Blooms, composed in the mid 1970s, was the first modern work of this genre, but it was forbidden for performance by Soviet authorities and did not receive its premiere until 2011.

Ukrainian Poem for violin and orchestra is Stankovych’s orchestration of his 1997 violin and piano composition with the same title. The violin soloist for this performance is Bohdana Pivnenko.