Marianna Stanislavivna Chernyavska is a Ukrainian pianist, musicologist, art scholar, and educator, born on 13 July 1967 in Kharkiv. She serves as Vice-Rector for Research and Professor of the Special Piano Department at the Kharkiv National University of Arts named after I. P. Kotlyarevsky. Her professional work combines concert performance, scholarly research, pedagogical leadership, and academic administration.
Chernyavska received her early musical training from B. O. Arkhimovych. From 1985 to 1990, she studied piano with Professor M. O. Yeshchenko at the Kharkiv State Institute of Arts named after I. P. Kotlyarevsky, graduating with honors. She then completed an assistantship-internship, also with honors, at the Kyiv State Conservatory named after P. I. Tchaikovsky, now the National Music Academy of Ukraine, studying under Professor I. M. Ryabov from 1990 to 1992. In 1987, she won First Prize at the First Inter-Republican Heino Eller Piano Competition in Tallinn, Estonia.
Having begun teaching at the Kharkiv institute while still a student as an assistant in the Department of General and Special Piano, Chernyavska continued in the Special Piano Department as a senior lecturer from 1992 to 2001, associate professor from 2002 to 2015, and professor from 2016 to 2021. She became Vice-Rector for Research in 2021 and was appointed an expert in scientific activities by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in 2024. From 2004 to 2021, she served as academic secretary of the university's specialized council for candidate dissertations in musical art, and since 2021 she has coordinated doctoral philosophy degree defenses in musical art.
In 2001, under the supervision of Oleksandr Stakhevych, Chernyavska defended her PhD dissertation, “L. van Beethoven and Piano Culture of the Late 18th–Early 19th Centuries: The Problem of Piano Texture Formation,” at the National Music Academy of Ukraine. She has authored more than 60 scholarly works, including the textbook Pianism of the Beethoven Era: The Formation of Piano Texture (2015), History of Piano Performance Art (2021), and, with K. V. Timofeeva, Scholarly Problems of Contemporary Piano Performance (2022). Her research addresses the history and theory of piano performance, contemporary performance practices, piano repertoire, and the legacy of the Kharkiv piano school. She is editor-in-chief of Aspects of Historical Musicology and serves on the editorial boards of Problems of Interaction of Art, Pedagogy, and the Theory and Practice of Education, the Journal of Music Theory and Transcultural Music Studies, and Yegah Musicology Journal.
As a performer, Chernyavska presents solo and ensemble programs, gives masterclasses in Ukraine and abroad, and serves on competition juries, including those of Kharkiv Assemblies and Art of the Twenty-First Century, as well as international events in Austria, Italy, and Lithuania. Her students have received prizes at competitions in Ukraine, Spain, Italy, Lithuania, the United Kingdom, and Austria. She has supervised the successful defenses of seven candidate-of-art-studies dissertations and seven PhD dissertations. Her distinctions include a 1991 gold medal for outstanding achievements in study and creative work and diplomas recognizing her pedagogical excellence from the international festivals “Visiting Aivazovsky” and “Musical Performance and Pedagogy.” She also participates in international scholarly exchange, including activities of the European League of Institutes of the Arts and cooperation with institutions such as the Utrecht University of the Arts.