Yakiv Stepovy
COMPOSERS
His compositional output consists primarily of piano pieces and a very large number of songs.
YAKIV STEPOVY (1883 Kharkiv – 1921 Kyiv) – real name Yakymenko – from the age of 11 belonged to the Tsar’s Court Choral Band in St. Petersburg, where his older brother Fedir was a teacher. He graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory studying with Liadov and Rimsky-Korsakov.
From 1917 Stepovy lived and was active in Kyiv, very actively involved in the organization of musical life: he taught at the Kyiv Conservatory, organized choral ensembles, and worked for the Ministry of Education. His compositional output consists primarily of piano pieces and very numerous songs, in which he proved to be a worthy continuator of Lysenko’s work – without directly using folklore, he brilliantly expressed the spirit of Ukrainian folk song.