OBITUARY: Maria Cisyk, 58, pianist, music teacher, consultant (12/14/03)

OBITUARY: Maria Cisyk, 58, pianist, music teacher, consultant

by Khristina Lew

METUCHEN, N.J. - Maria Cisyk of Ridgefield, Conn., pianist, teacher, performance coach and performing arts medicine consultant, lost her 15-year battle with breast cancer at Danbury Hospital on December 6. She was 58.

Ms. Cisyk was born on August 18, 1945, in a displaced persons camp near Bayreuth, Germany, and immigrated to the United States when she was 4 years old.

Her father, Wolodymyr Cisyk, a virtuoso violinist, was her first music teacher at their home in Queens, N.Y. She later studied at Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts and Juilliard Preparatory College and graduated from the Juilliard School. As an undergraduate, she was a student of M. Munz and Rosinna Lhevine and as such could trace her musical lineage directly to Franz Lizst.

Ms. Cisyk also held post-graduate degrees from both Yale University and Juilliard, where she was a teaching fellow in music history and literature, and materials of music.

A dedicated educator, Ms. Cisyk was a former director of the Preparatory and Extension Divisions of the San Francisco Conservatory and served at various times on the faculties of Juilliard, Yale, the State University of New York at Binghamton, New York University, Lone Mountain College and Western Connecticut State University.

For the past 25 years Ms. Cisyk actively maintained private teaching studios in the Carnegie Hall Building in Manhattan, and at her home in Ridgefield, Conn.

An active soloist and chamber artist, Ms. Cisyk performed by invitation both abroad, for example in Kyiv and Lviv, and in numerous cities in the United States, including Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Boston, Washington, Baltimore and Hartford, Conn., and quite frequently in New York City.

In 1993 she appeared in recital at the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium at the United Nations.

She also accompanied her sister, Kvitka Cisyk, on the popular singer's two albums of Ukrainian folk songs, "Kvitka" (1980) and "Kvitka Two Colors" (1989).

Ms. Cisyk was in demand by professional teaching associations as a lecture-recitalist in piano pedagogy, piano literature and performing arts medicine. Some of her most popular lecture-recitals included "The Color Theories and Music of Scriabin," researched and first performed during her time at Yale University; "From Bach to Schoenberg: Passion and Reason Through the Centuries," given at Vassar College in 1999; and "The Impressionist Aesthetic in Music and Art," the subject of a 1997 lecture-recital at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.

She is survived by her daughters, Alexandra and Samantha Merley; Jeffrey Baker, her companion of 20 years; her brother-in-law, Edward Rakowicz; her nephew, Edward Wolodymyr Rakowicz; her uncle, Wasyl Lew, with his wife, Oksana; and cousins: Maria Cisyk; Khristina Lew, with her husband Adrian Gawdiak, and their son, Gregory; Olesia Lew, with her husband Peter Hausler, and their daughter, Zozulka; Ruta Lew; and Maya Lew.

A memorial service was scheduled to be held in Ridgefield, Conn., on December 14. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Because Life is Beautiful, a breast cancer awareness program that is purchasing mammography equipment for Ukraine. Checks may be made out to Public Education International, account No. 101303-000, and mailed to Self-Reliance Ukrainian Federal Credit Union, 2332 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60622. Please note on the check "in memory of Maria Cisyk."

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