Melody
Myroslav Skoryk
About the Composer
Born in present-day Lviv Ukraine (then Lwów, Poland), composer, teacher, and musicologist Myroslav Skoryk has a rich musical output that grounds itself in Carpatho-Ukrainian folklore and embodies idioms of both Western and Eastern European traditions. Skoryk was exposed to music at a young age. His parents, both educators, were also amateaur musicians–his mother played the piano and his father played the violin–and his great aunt was the well-known Ukrainian soprano Solomiya Srushelnytska. In 1945 his great aunt recognized his innate musical gifts and enrolled Skoryk at the Lviv Music school; however, he only spent two years studying there before his family was deported to Siberia in 1947. Skoyrk was able to return to Ukraine in 1955, after the death of Stalin, and entered the Lviv Conservatory where he studied composition with Stanyslav Lyudkevych, Roman Simovych, and Adam Soltys. He graduated in 1960 and continued his studies at the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied composition with Dmitri Kabalevsky from 1960-64.
After graduating in 1964, Skoryk returned to Lviv and joined the faculty of the Lviv Conservatory as a music theory and composition teacher. In 1967, he also joined the faculty at the Kyiv Conservatory, where he continued to teach until 1988. During his career he was an active member of the National Union of Composers of Ukraine, holding positions as secretary and head of the Lviv branch. Throughout his lifetime he received awards and accolades including the Shevchenko Prize for his Cello Concerto (1987), People’s Artist of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian President’s Order of Merit. On the Independence Day of Ukraine in 2020, Presendy Volodymyr Zelenskyy posthumously declared Skyork a Hero of Ukraine.
About the Music
Skoryk’s integration of Ukrainian folk music into his compositions is seldom literal, but rather an organic incorporation of idiomatic folk rhythms and melodic gestures into his personal style. His oeuvre spans multiple genres including opera, orchestral works, vocal works, film music, theatrical music, jazz, and popular music. Skoryk’s music is regularly performed throughout Europe and the United States and during his lifetime he often performed his own works as a pianist or conductor. His Melody is one of the most performed pieces by a Ukrainian composer. A breathtaking short work, it exists in various arrangements from solo piano to full symphonic orchestra and embodies Skoryk’s propensity for expansive melodic gestures. Its beauty holds a special place in the hearts of Ukrainian people and recently was heard as the soundtrack to a video shown during President Zelenskyy’s address to the United States Congress on March 16, 2022. Special thanks to Duma Music in Woodbridge, NJ for their incredible passion and promotion of this great music, and for making today’s performance of it possible.
All notes by Christina Dioguardi