Victor Kaminskyi: Quasi una Sonata

Victor Kaminskiy (b. 1953) is a Ukrainian composer, teacher, theorist, and social activist. He studied at the Khmelnytsky College of Music before entering the Lviv State Conservatory M. V. Lysenka. Starting out exploring avant-garde trends, Kaminskiy turned to neoromanticism and neo-folk styles in his symphony, his first violin concerto, and the oboe concerto. After he finished his studies at the conservatory, he worked in the Institution of culture in Rivne. In 1978, at the age of 25, he became one of the youngest members of National Union of Composers of Ukraine and started teaching at the Lviv Conservatory. During this time he composed many songs, one of which, “Lark”, became extremely famous in Ukraine. He then composed incidental music for several productions, including the extremely successful Marusia Churai. In the 1990s he became deeply interested in setting poetry. He revealed the depth of poetry of one of the most distinguished dissidents of Ukrainian literature, Igor Kalyn, in his oratorio I’m going. I call. I call. Kaminskyi has always experimented, finding new levels of synthesis in merging innovative compositional techniques with different stylistic layers from the past. These trends show up in his Piano Concerto in memory of Vasyl Barviskiy, the Concerto for four soloists, harpsichord and chamber orchestra, Violin Concerto No. 2 “Christmas”, and many other works. He was rewarded Shevchenko National Prize in 2005. Since 2002, he has been a vice rector of the Lviv National Academy of Music M.V. Lysenka and he headed Lviv organization WCOU (World Congress of Ukranianians) in 2020. He often participates in juries for performance and composition competitions.

Victor Kaminskyi’s Quasi una Sonata for cello and piano was composed in 2020.