Mykola Fomenko
Mykola Oleksandrovych Fomenko (25 December 1894 – 8 October 1961) was a composer of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States, as well as a pianist, music critic, educator, and professor. He was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russian Empire, and was buried at St. Andrew's Cemetery.
In 1929, Fomenko graduated from the Kharkiv Conservatory, now the I. P. Kotliarevskyi Kharkiv National University of Arts, where he studied with Semion Bohatyrev. He remained at the conservatory as a teacher, performed in concert with Kostiantyn Bohuslavskyi, and worked as a music editor for the Art publishing house.
Fomenko emigrated to the United States in 1951 and became a professor at the Ukrainian Music Institute in New York. He gave concerts with his wife, the soprano Isabella Orlovska. As a musicologist, he prepared monographs on Ukrainian composers commissioned by the Ukrainian service of Voice of America. A heart condition interrupted his creative work for two years, but in 1953 he resumed teaching and composing.
His output includes operas, choral music, symphonic works, and other compositions. His operas include Marusia Bohuslavka, the unfinished Anna, the fairy-tale opera Ivasik-Telesyk, and the children's miniature operas Kitty Kiki and The Postman. He also wrote two symphonies, a symphonic poem, three suites, a piano concerto, works for piano, violin, and cello, art songs setting texts by Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Pavlo Tychyna, and Yar Slavutych, as well as songs and choral works.