Oleksandr Shchetynsky

Oleksandr Shchetynsky was born in 1960 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He studied composition at the Kharkiv State Institute of Arts (1978-83) with Valentyn Borysov. However, it was Valentyn Bibik who had the greatest influence on him as a composer.

Shchetynsky has won prizes at six international composition competitions in Austria, France, Luxembourg, Poland and Switzerland. From 1991 to 1995 he taught composition at the Kharkiv Institute of Arts, then worked as a freelance composer. He moved to Kyiv in 2006. His list of works includes compositions in many forms, ranging from instrumental solo and chamber music to orchestral and choral pieces, as well as operas.

In the last decade he has written the opera-fantasy "Interrupted Letter" after Taras Shevchenko (staged in Vienna in 2015), Piano Concerto (premiered in Mainz in 2015), the choral cycles ‘Six Poems by Pavlo Tychyna’ (premiered in Harlem, the Netherlands in 2016) and ‘Pastorals for Angels’ (2021), the apocryphal opera ‘Juda and Magdalena’ (2017), the Accordion Concerto ‘Ascension’ (2018), Sonata for Organ (2021).

After Russia launched its assault on Ukraine, Shchetynsky stayed in Kyiv. His compositions from this period include Lacrimosa for 6 instruments and ‘2022 War Trio’ for violin, trumpet and piano (both 2022). In 2023 two of his works were premiered in Germany: Agnus Dei for orchestra (Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Vladimir Yurovsky) and De profundis for 5 instruments (Festival für Neue Musik aus der Ukraine Widerstand der Klänge, Bonn).

In 2018 he published a book on the Ukrainian avant-garde composer Leonid Hrabovsky (b.1935) which includes dialogues with the composer, analytical articles, letters and other materials. In 2018 he resumed teaching activity at the Kharkiv National University of Arts. He also published several analytical articles on Ukrainian music and defended a PHD dissertation “Typology of composer’s self-actualization: from the creative laboratory of L. Hrabovsky, V. Baley, and V. Bibik”.