Taras Kravtsov was a Soviet and Ukrainian musicologist, composer, and teacher. He was born in Kharkiv on October 22, 1922, and died there on September 2, 2013. In 1940, he completed secondary school in Kharkiv and began studying piano at the Kharkiv Music College. He graduated in 1952 from the history and theory faculty of the Kharkiv Conservatory, where he studied music theory with Professor M. D. Tits.
Kravtsov taught at the conservatory, later the Kharkiv National University of Arts, from 1952 until 2013. He served as dean in 1961–1962, became an associate professor in 1966, and headed the music theory department from 1970 to 1986. He was appointed professor in 1992. From 2004 to 2006, he chaired the university’s specialist academic council for dissertation defenses. His students included Nina Ocheretovska, Hryhorii Ignatchenko, Tetiana Verkina, Hryhorii Ganzburg, and Natalia Surzhina.
He defended his candidate’s dissertation in 1963 and his doctoral dissertation in 1989; the latter was titled “Harmonic Intonation.” His musicological work addressed harmony, musical intonation, and the relationship between folk song and the music of Ukrainian composer Andriy Shtoharenko. His publications included the monograph Harmony in the System of Intonational Connections (1984) and a study of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s romances on poems by Taras Shevchenko.
Kravtsov’s compositions included the cantata-thought At Shevchenko’s Grave (1962), the cantata-poem Red Winter (1967; revised in 1977), variations on a Ukrainian theme (1957), and the cycle Spring, and Sun, and Songs (1962). He also wrote choral works, including Three Romantic Choruses (1965) and the cycle Choral Watercolors (1974), and arranged folk songs. He was named an Honored Artist of Ukraine in 2003 and received the I. I. Slatin Prize.