Leontovych String Quartet and Vynnytsky to perform at Weill Hall

NEW YORK - The Leontovych String Quartet and pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky will appear in concert at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall on Monday, November 24, at 8 p.m. The concert is presented by the Musicians Corporate Management.

Quartet members are Yuri Mazurkevich, first violin; Yuri Kharenko, violin; Borys Deviatov, viola; and Volodymyr Panteleyev, cello.

The concert program will include the following: Skoryk, "Melody" ; Shostakovich, Quartet in F-sharp Minor, No. 7, Op. 108; Brahms, String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 51, No. 2; and Franck, Quintet in F Minor for Piano and Strings.

The quartet is named after Mykola Leontovych, the 19th century Ukrainian composer and folk music collector, particularly noted for his choral arrangements of folk music.

Since its founding at the Kyiv Philharmonic in 1976, the Leontovych String Quartet has performed more than 2,000 concerts, appearing in major international festivals and concert halls throughout the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Germany and Italy.

The quartet made its American debut tour in 1988 with performances at the United Nations, Harvard University and Music Mountain Festival in Connecticut, the oldest continuing international music festival in the U.S. It has since appeared at Music Mountain for seven consecutive years, as well as at festivals and chamber music societies throughout the country.

A prize-winner of the Leo Weiner International String Quartet Competition in Budapest, the quartet was given the Lysenko Award in 1989 for popularizing Ukrainian chamber music, making this the first time the award was given to an ensemble rather than a composer. Some 13 works were written for the Leontovych String Quartet by Ukrainian and Russian composers, and the quartet has premiered works by such composers as Schnittke, Sylvestrov, Skoryk and Hrabovsky.

In the former Soviet Union, the quartet recorded more than 30 works for radio broadcast and Melodiya Records. In the U.S., it records for Greystone Records.

Yuri Mazurkevich, a native of Lviv, studied with the renowned violinist David Oistrakh in Moscow. He has appeared as a highly acclaimed soloist and member of the Pomerants-Mazurkevich violin duo in the former USSR, the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Mexico, Hong Kong, Japan and China. In 1985 he was appointed professor of violin at Boston University, where he currently serves as chairman of the string department. Mr. Mazurkevich is a laureate of the Helsinki, Munich and Montreal international violin competitions. In 1990, 16 years after his emigration, he was invited to perform in Moscow, Kyiv, and Lviv. Mr. Mazurkevich has been a member of the Leontovych String Quartet since 1991.

Violinist Yuri Kharenko was born in Kyiv. A graduate of the Lysenko Special Music School, he went on to study with Prof. A. Shtern at the Kyiv Conservatory. He joined the Leontovych String Quartet in 1983 and has performed throughout the former Soviet Union and Europe. Mr. Kharenko has appeared at various international festivals, including Music Mountain, the Newport Festival in Rhode Island, the Texas Music Festival in Houston and in New York on radio station WQXR. In 1994 he appeared as a soloist at the Kyiv Music Fest. Prior to emigrating to the U.S. in 1991, he was on the faculty of the Kyiv Conservatory. Mr. Kharenko was named Outstanding Artist of Ukraine and is a recipient of the Lysenko Prize.

Violist Borys Deviatov was born in Vorkuta, Russia. He attended the Vorkuta Music School and the Cherkasy Music School in Ukraine. Mr. Deviatov studied with Prof. Olenych at the Lviv Conservatory in 1973-1978. He is the winner of several prizes as both violist and conductor, and has toured extensively since 1978 throughout the former Soviet Union, Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia and Poland in solo recitals and as soloist with orchestras. Mr. Deviatov joined the Leontovych String Quartet in 1990.

Cellist Volodymyr Panteleyev, co-founder of the Leontovych String Quartet, studied at the Kyiv Conservatory and the Moscow Conservatory, where he received a doctorate degree in chamber music. He served as professor of cello and string quartet at the Kyiv Conservatory in 1976-1991. Mr. Panteleyev has appeared as soloist with the Kyiv Chamber Orchestra, performed many solo recitals, as well as given numerous master classes. He was named Outstanding Artist of Ukraine and is a recipient of the Lysenko Prize.

A laureate of the Margueritte Long-Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris (1983), pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky has established himself as a distinctive musical personality and has received critical and audience acclaim for his fresh and penetrating readings of the scores.

A native of Lviv, Mr. Vynnytsky studied at the Lviv Music School for Gifted Children under the tutelage of Lydia Golemba and later at the Moscow Conservatory with the distinguished pianist Evgeny Malinin. He received his doctorate in 1983 from the Moscow Conservatory and subsequently taught at the Kyiv Conservatory. Mr. Vynnytsky concertized extensively throughout Ukraine, the other republics of the former Soviet Union, and Europe. In addition, he actively promoted new music as a member of the Perpetuum Mobile Kyiv Chamber Orchestra, which performed works of 20th century composers, many of whom had never been heard in the former Soviet Union.

Mr. Vynnytsky's recordings include works by Mozart, Bortniansky, Chopin, and Liszt for Kobza Productions (Kyiv-Toronto), the works of modern Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk for Yevshan Records (Montreal), and archival recordings of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto and Britten's "Young Apollo" Concerto for the Ukrainian Broadcasting Corporation in Kyiv

In 1994, Mr. Vynnytsky and cellist Vagram Saradjian, performing as a duo, won the Distinguished Artists Award in New York and went on to make a critically acclaimed debut at Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Vynnytsky, who has been residing in the U.S. since 1991, is a visiting member of the piano faculty at State University of New York in Purchase, N.Y., and artist-in-residence at the Music and Art Center of Greene County in Hunter, N.Y.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 16, 1997, No. 46, Vol. LXV

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