Zhanna Kolodub

Born in 1930 in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, Zhanna Kolodub has written children’s ballets, cantatas, and orchestral and chamber works. She began studying the violin in her youth, and majored in violin and piano as an undergraduate. In graduate school, she turned her focus to the piano and began composition classes with Boris Lyatoshynsky, who, along with her composer husband, Lev Kolodub, had a tremendous influence on the formation of her style. She also spent time as an accompanist, where she learned choir, orchestra, folk, vocal, wind, and chamber music, and has said that learning such diverse repertoire had a strong influence on her compositional views and technique.