Alexander Rovenko
Alexander Rovenko was a Soviet and Ukrainian musicologist, composer, and teacher, as well as a Doctor of Art Studies and professor. He was known for his research on the theory of polyphony and counterpoint and for promoting modern information and computer technologies in the field of musical art.
He was born in Penza into a military family. Because of his father’s service, the family moved frequently, and each school year began for the children in a new school in Russia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, or Ukraine. Rovenko began studying music at the age of thirteen and completed his schooling with distinction.
From 1964 to 1969 he studied musicology at the Odessa State Conservatory named after A. V. Nezhdanova, in the class of Professor G. N. Viranovsky. At the same time, he studied composition with Professor S. D. Orfeyev, a pupil of the composer N. N. Vilinsky. In 1970 he entered postgraduate study at the Gnessin State Musical-Pedagogical Institute in the class of Professor F. G. Arzamanov, completing it in 1973. In 1975 he defended his candidate dissertation, "Stretto Imitation: Theoretical, Stylistic, and Methodological Foundations." After completing doctoral study at the Moscow State Conservatory named after P. I. Tchaikovsky under Professor E. V. Nazaikinsky, he defended his doctoral dissertation in 1990 on "Taneyev Principles in the Modern Theory of Counterpoint and Imitation." He became the first musicologist in Odessa to receive the degree of Doctor of Art Studies.
From 1972 onward, Rovenko taught at the Odessa State Conservatory named after A. V. Nezhdanova. He developed special courses in polyphony, informatics, and computer music, and supervised many diploma and master’s works by young musicologists. He was appointed associate professor in 1979 and professor in 1986. For many years, from 1985 to 2001, he served as vice-rector for research at the conservatory. In 2002 he moved permanently to Germany.
Rovenko’s scholarly activity began attracting attention during his student years. In 1967 he became the first student musicologist at the Odessa Conservatory to be recognized in the All-Union competition for the best student work with a certificate from the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education of the USSR. He was the author of more than one hundred scholarly and methodological works and music-critical articles. A central direction of his research was the development of theoretical ideas from Sergey Taneyev’s study "Convertible Counterpoint in the Strict Style." Among his most significant publications was the textbook "Practical Foundations of Stretto-Imitative Polyphony" (Moscow, 1986), which was later translated into German at the initiative of Otfried Büsing and published in Germany by Verlag Ernst Kuhn. He also created polyphony curricula for secondary specialized music schools and higher musical institutions at the request of the Methodological Office of the USSR Ministry of Culture.
As a specialist in the theory of multipart writing, polyphony, and counterpoint, Rovenko was known in many countries. He lectured in Finland, China, and Germany based on the materials of his books and articles. His academic authority was reflected in his appointment by specialized scholarly councils in Kyiv, Moscow, Vilnius, and Minsk as an official opponent for the defense of ten doctoral and fourteen candidate dissertations.
As a composer, Rovenko wrote works for choir, string orchestra, piano, cello, organ, and other forces. His compositions included "Obstacle Race" for piano (1970), "Expressions" for solo cello (1977), "Pentamima" for string orchestra (1999), "Palindrome on the Theme BACH" for string orchestra (2000), "Dedication to Bach" - Baroque Sonata (2000), "Shadow and Light" - Fugue a la Barocco (2002), and "Games for Open Strings and Timpani" (2003). He also made arrangements of works by Ravel, Bach, Chopin, Franck, Villa-Lobos, Gershwin, Sartori, and Burke and van Heusen. In 2001 he won an international competition in Florence, and his music was performed in concert halls in different countries, including repeated performances at the annual international festival "Two Days and Two Nights of New Music" in Odessa.
In his pedagogical work, Rovenko filled his lectures with original scholarly ideas that did not always appear in standard textbooks. From 1989 he actively introduced modern information and computer technologies into the conservatory’s curriculum through a program designed specifically for humanities-oriented musicians. He initiated the creation of a research laboratory at the conservatory for the development of educational computer programs in music theory. One of the products created there, the "Enharmonic Machine," received high praise in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Israel, and China. His students went on to work successfully in various areas of culture, art, and music education in Ukraine, Russia, and other countries.
He was also active in educational and editorial work, giving music lectures, taking part in television programs, and serving from 1977 on the editorial board of the scholarly-methodological collection "Ukrainian Musicology." From 1978 he was a member of the Union of Composers of the USSR and Ukraine and later of the Association of New Music. He prepared for publication the book "Leontovych and the Ukrainian Folk Song" by S. D. Orfeyev and helped bring out in Ukraine Sergey Skrebkov’s "Theory of Imitative Polyphony." In 2001 he served as chairman of the jury of the International Competition of Young Composers "Maestro" in Simferopol. For his achievements in renewing the educational process and creating special courses, he received the Prize of the USSR State Committee for Public Education in 1988 and was awarded the badge "For Excellent Success in Work," along with numerous honorary certificates.