Valery Kikta is a Soviet and Russian composer, born on 22 October 1941 in Volodymyrivka, Volnovakha District, Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. He is also a professor of the Moscow Conservatory. He was awarded the title Honored Artist of the Russian Federation in 1992 and Honored Artist of Ukraine in 1999.
He graduated from the Moscow Choral School in 1960. In 1965 he completed the composition department of the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied in the class of Tikhon Khrennikov, and in 1967 he finished postgraduate assistant training at the conservatory under the same supervisor.
From 1967 to 1993 Kikta worked as a leading music editor at the publishing house Soviet Composer. From 1968 he was a member of the Union of Composers of the USSR. From 1989 he served as a member of the board of the Moscow Union of Composers and chairman of its musical theatre commission, and from 2006 he became secretary of the Union of Composers of Russia. Since 1989 he has also been a member of the editorial board of the journal Ballet.
Kikta is the author of works in many genres. He composed 11 ballets, including Dubrovsky and Vladimir the Baptizer, as well as symphonic works such as Ukrainian Carols, Shchedrivkas and Vesniankas and Frescoes of St. Sophia of Kyiv. His catalogue also includes oratorios and cantatas, instrumental concertos, choral works, compositions for organ and harp, music for children and young people, and songs, including Quietly, Quietly the Snow Falls to words by V. Tatarinov.
He was active in musical public life and advocacy, including speaking at the World Harp Congress in Geneva in 2002 on the subject of music for harp in Russia. Since 2004 he has been chairman of the board of the Russian Harp Society in Moscow.
Among his distinctions are the Moscow City Hall Prize (2000), the Dmitri Shostakovich Prize of the Union of Composers of Russia (2002), a diploma and the Golden Pushkin Medal (1999), the Ballet magazine prize Soul of Dance, the prize of the Third All-Union Review of Young Composers (1969), the Bratislava-1979 international composition competition prize for Smolensk Rhapsody for violin and folk orchestra, the prize of the International Children’s Song Competition in Helsinki (1982), and a commendation from the Mayor of Moscow in 2016. He has also published articles, essays, interviews, prefaces, and reference editions on music, ballet, and composers.