Shcherbakov Igor

IGOR SHCHERBAKOV (b. 1955, Dnipropetrovsk) graduated in composition from the Kyiv Conservatory of Music in the class of Vitaliy Kireyko. He is currently a professor of composition at the same Conservatory, renamed the Pyotr Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kyiv. In 1992-95, he was the director of the “Musical Forum of the Young” contemporary music festival. He is currently the director of the Kyiv Festival “Musical Premieres of the Season,” and is also chairman of the organizing committee of Ukraine’s most important music festival “Kyiv Music Fest.” He has served as chairman of the Kyiv Branch of the Composers’ Union of Ukraine since 1999, and has been chairman of the Composers’ Union of Ukraine since 2010.

He was awarded the Taras Shevchenko State Prize, as well as the Artem Wedel “Kyiv” Art Prize. He has written operas, works for symphony orchestra, theater music, chamber, vocal and choral works, as well as works for children. Many of Igor Shcherbakov’s works have resulted from collaborations with outstanding Ukrainian performers – pianist Yosef Örmény, violinist Bogodar Kotorovich and pianist and conductor Valery Matiuchin. The vocal and choral pieces are written to texts by Afanasiy Fet, Lesi Ukrainka, Kim Sobol, Lina Kostenko, Mykola Vorobyov, Maxim Rylsky, Yuri Plaksiuk. In his music, the composer seeks to unite the Erupean traditions of sacred music with the meditative construction of musical space, recently increasingly tinged with neo-romantic flux. Among the most important compositions, are “Penitential Verse” (1989), cantata for mixed choir “Stabat Mater”(1992), “Aria Passione “for chamber orchestra (1992), “Agnus Dei” for soprano, organ and percussion (1996), “Concerto for piano and strings” (1996), “Concerto for violin and chamber orchestra” (1997-99), “Liebestod” for symphony orchestra (2004), “Barcarolle” for piano and symphony orchestra (2005), “Piano Concerto No. 2” (2005), “Concerto for flute and orchestra” (2008). Shcherbakov’s works are performed in many countries, and have been recorded for Ukrainian and Polish Radio and released on CDs. In Poland, they have been presented at “Warsaw Music Meetings” and “Days of Music by Krakow Composers,” among others. They have been published in Ukraine and Switzerland. The current publisher of Igor Shcherbakov’s works is Lauren Keiser Music Publishing (NY, USA).