Dychko, Lesia

Dychko, Lesia or Liudmyla [Дичко, Леся or Людмила; Dyčko, Lesja or Ljudmyla], b 24 October 1939 in Kyiv. Composer. In 1964 Dychko graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory where she studied under Kostiantyn Dankevych and Borys Liatoshynsky. One of the leading Ukrainian composers of choir music, she was awarded the Shevchenko Prize in 1989. She has taught at the Kyiv Conservatory (now National Music Academy of Ukraine) since 1994 and became professor in 2009. Dychko was associated with a group of composers known as ‘the Neofolkloric Wave.’ Her works include two operas, two oratorios, four ballets; works for orchestra and chorus, most notably the symphony Pryvitannia zhyttia (Welcoming Life) for soprano, bass, and chamber orchestra, based on the words of the imagist poet Bohdan Ihor Antonych, and Viter revoliutsii (Wind of the Revolution) based on the poems of Maksym Rylsky and Pavlo Tychyna; numerous cantatas to the words of Taras Shevchenko, Mykola Vinhranovsky, and other poets; choir concertos and two choir poems: Holod – 33 (Famine 1933; based on the words of S. Kolomiiets) and Lebedi materynstva (The Swans of Motherhood; based on the poems by Vasyl Symonenko); music for piano; and film scores. Dychko was one of the first Ukrainian composers in Soviet Ukraine of the 1980s to begin composing church music and she has composed three liturgies.

  [This article was updated in 2016.]