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Alexander Shchetynsky
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Alexander Shchetynsky is a Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 composer. Born on 22 June 1960 in Kharkiv
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...

, in the Ukrainian SSR
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...

 of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. His work list includes compositions in various forms ranging from solo instrumental to orchestral, choral pieces and operas.

Education and influences

Shchetynsky graduated from the Kharkiv
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...

 Art Institute in 1983. Although he studied composition officially with Valentyn Borysov, another Ukrainian composer, Valentyn Bibik, strongly influenced him in those formative years. Another important source of inspiration was so called Soviet musical avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

: Edison Denisov
Edison Denisov
Edison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...

, Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...

, Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...

, Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, is a Russian composer of half Russian, half Tatar ethnicity.Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations...

, Valentin Silvestrov
Valentin Silvestrov
Valentyn Vasylyovych Sylvestrov is a Ukrainian pianist and composer of contemporary classical music.-Education:Sylvestrov began private music lessons at age 15...

. Later Shchetynsky participated in master classes with Edison Denisov
Edison Denisov
Edison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...

 and Poul Ruders
Poul Ruders
Poul Ruders is a Danish composer.Ruders trained as an organist, and studied orchestration with Karl Aage Rasmussen. Ruders's first compositions date from the mid-1960s...

 in Denmark, and summer courses in Poland, where he attended lectures by Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...

, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...

, Boguslaw Schaeffer
Boguslaw Schaeffer
Bogusław Julien Schaeffer is a Polish composer, musicologist, and graphic artist, member of the avantgarde "Cracow Group" of Polish composers alongside Krzysztof Penderecki and others...

, and Magnus Lindberg
Magnus Lindberg
Magnus Lindberg is a Finnish composer and pianist. He is currently the composer-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic.-Education:...

. Music of the Second Viennese School
Second Viennese School
The Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...

, Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

, and György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

 had a significant impact on Shchetynsky.

Performances

Since the late 80s, his music has been presented at festivals and concerts in Europe and America, performed by internationally acclaimed artists and ensembles, such as the Moscow Helikon Opera
Helikon Opera
Helikon Opera is a Russian opera company based in Moscow, specializing in unconventional productions. Their main performing base is the 250 seat Mayakovsky Theater, the former ballroom in the palace of the Shakhovskoi-Glebov-Streshneva family who were patrons of the arts in 19th century Moscow...

, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is a Welsh symphony orchestra and one of the BBC's five professional orchestras. The BBC NOW is the only professional symphony orchestra organisation in Wales, occupying a dual role as both a broadcasting orchestra and national orchestra.The BBC NOW has its...

, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
The Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra , one of Poland's premier musical institutions, was established in 1901 on the initiative of an assembly of Polish aristocrats and financiers, as well as musicians...

, children's choir Maîtrise de Radio France, the Arditti String Quartet, the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Ensemble Wiener Collage, Mark Pekarsky Percussion Ensemble, pianist Yvar Mikhashoff
Yvar Mikhashoff
Yvar Emilian Mikhashoff was an American virtuoso pianist and composer...

, soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson, a.o. Among the publishers of Shchetynsky are Alain Van Kerckhoven Editeur, Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and wind musical instruments....

, Le Chant du Monde, and Gerard Billaudot Editeur S.A. Two "portrait" CDs with his music were released in the USA and France. In 2011 NAXOS released the CD 'New Sacred Music from Ukraine' with his choral works.

Awards

Shchetynsky received seven international composer’s awards:
  • Main and Special prizes at the International Kazimierz Serocki Competition, Poland (for orchestral work Glossolalie, 1990),
  • First Prize at the International Sacred Music Competition, Fribourg, Switzerland (for The Preacher's Word for soprano and string quartet, 1991),
  • Second Prize at the International Witold Lutosłavski Competition, Poland (for Flute Concerto, 1995),
  • Second Prize at the International Henri Dutilleux Competition, Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, France (for The Baptism, Temptation and Prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ for bass, clarinet, trombone, viola, cello and double bass, 1996),
  • Third Prize at the International Gustav Mahler Competition, Klagenfurt, Austria (for Sonata da camera for cello and chamber ensemble, 1998),
  • Russian National Theatrical Prize, Gold Mask, in the category innovation (for chamber opera Annunciation in frame of the performance Voices of the Invisible – The Bible Triptych at the Helikon Opera in Moscow, 2000).
  • Second Prize at the International Composition Prize Luxembourg 2006, Luxembourg (for Chamber Concerto for piano and 12 instrumentalists, 2006)

Style

At the age of about 30, he developed his personal post-serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

 style based on combination of quasi-serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

  procedures and special attention to attractiveness of sound material and to melody as a source of expression. Another fundamental feature of his music is its rhythmic, structural and formal flexibility, which provokes feeling of "self-development" of initial micro-thematic patterns. The idea of modern spirituality became an impulse for many his vocal and instrumental compositions. This is particularly significant in his 3 operas and several choral compositions written recently. Moscow critic Alexey Parin referred to Shchetynsky as "a consequent stickler for avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

" and stated that "his spirituality reveals in strict, ascetically beautiful sounds that impress with their hermetism, within the context of up-to-date musical language". Nevertheless, in his newest compositions he moves towards postmodernistic
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

 aesthetics utilizing stylistic elements of various epochs. However, he stays apart from eclecticism and aims at finding a new unity in combination of those musical elements that historically never existed next to each other.

"His style is essentially that of a structuralist, relying on a synthesis of a variety of modernist techniques and exploring in each piece a particular musical metaphor. This method explains his reliance on pieces with descriptive titles. The influence of an especially eastern European variety of minimalism (more meditative and less didactic) is also apparent in the carefully worked out relationship between different degrees of sound and silence, the predominance of soft dynamics, and in the smallest details and changes in pitch, timbre and rhythm."

Pedagogical activities

From 1982 to 1990 Shchetynsky taught composition at a music school in Kharkiv
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...

 utilizing the Brainin Teaching Method
Valeri Brainin
Valeri Brainin , Russian/German musicologist, music manager, composer, and poet....

 of music education.

From 1991 to 1995 he taught composition, instrumentation, and techniques of contemporary music at the Kharkiv
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...

 Art Institute.

Since 1995, although being a free-lance composer, he regularly lectured on Ukrainian music, gave master classes, and presented own works at international festivals and symposia in Austria, Germany, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Ukraine.

Public and management activities

From 1997 to 2005 Shchetynsky was the member of the Art Council of the Festival Contrasts in Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

 – the biggest and most prestigious international contemporary music festival in Ukraine. He was among the organisers of several other contemporary music festivals in Ukraine and Russia, and from 1995 to 2001 ran concert series New Music in Kharkiv
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...

.

Since 2006 he lives in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

.

Music for movies

Las Meninas
Las Meninas (film)
Las Meninas is a 2008 Ukrainian film directed by Ihor Podolchak.-Plot synopsis:The film is about what the routine of everyday life can do to the human mind and psyche. It also reflects on the importance of the choices we make and how limited these choices are in the first place. The plot evolves...

 written, directed and produced by Ihor Podolchak
Ihor Podolchak
Ihor Podolchak is a Ukrainian film director, painter, printmaker, photographer and graphic designer. Podolchak was born in Lviv, Ukraine and studied at the Lviv Academy of Fine Arts , graduating in 1984 with distinction.Artist, creator of numerous projects in the field of visual art, winner of 25...

. Full-length (99 min) movie produced in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, 2008.

International Film Festivals for Las Meninas (film)

2009

2008

External links

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