Andriy Shtoharenko
Andriy Shtoharenko (full name Andriy Yakovych Shtoharenko) was a Ukrainian Soviet composer, teacher, and musical public figure. He was born on 15 October 1902 (2 October, Old Style) in Novi Kaidaky, now part of Dnipro, into the family of a factory turner. His parents took part in amateur musical groups, and music was central to family life.
From 1912 he studied piano at the Yekaterinoslav Music School with Z. Razlovska. Frequent family moves prevented him from completing the course. Between 1921 and 1930 he taught singing at secondary schools in Yekaterinoslav. In 1926 he formed an accordion ensemble later known as the First Ukrainian Komsomol Chamber Ensemble, with which he gave concerts until 1930.
In 1930 Shtoharenko entered the Kharkiv Conservatory, where he studied composition with Semen Bohatyrov and graduated in 1936. His student works included the cantata-poem Canal Works, based on the melody and text of a folk song, as well as the suite Childhood and the folk-song arrangement cycle A Girl's Fate for voice and symphony orchestra. From 1936 to 1941 he worked in Kharkiv and led the defense-music section of the city branch of the Union of Composers of Ukraine.
He settled in Kyiv in 1943 and joined the faculty of the Kyiv Conservatory, now the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine. He became a professor in 1960, served as rector from 1954 to 1968, and headed its composition department from 1968 to 1989. He also held senior posts in the Union of Composers of Ukraine and the Union of Composers of the USSR. In 1962 he helped organize the Mykola Lysenko International Music Competition in Kyiv, and he served on the vocal and piano juries of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1970 and 1974.
Symphonic and vocal music formed the core of Shtoharenko's output. His six symphonies include the cantata-symphony My Ukraine (1942), Fairy-Tale (1947), In Memory of a Comrade (1966), Kyiv (1972), and Biographical (1979). He also wrote the symphonic suite In Memory of Lesya Ukrainka, Symphonic Dances, symphonic poems, five suites, choral cycles, romances, songs, folk-song arrangements, and music for dramatic productions and films. His instrumental works include concertos for violin and piano, a concertino for violin, a piano concert-poem, the string quartet Armenian Sketches, the piano trio Youthful, and Four Ukrainian Dances for violin and piano.
He received the Stalin Prize, Second Class, in 1946 for My Ukraine and again in 1952 for In Memory of Lesya Ukrainka. His Kyiv Symphony received the Shevchenko State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR in 1974. He was named People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR in 1970 and People's Artist of the USSR in 1972. Shtoharenko died in Kyiv on 15 November 1992 and was buried at Baikove Cemetery. Memorial plaques in Kyiv mark the house where he lived and a classroom at the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine where he taught.