Bozhyk, Volodymyr

Bozhyk, Volodymyr [Божик, Володимир; Božyk], b 27 December 1908 in Rava Ruska, Galicia, d 9 January 1991 in Los Angeles, California. Choir conductor and singer. He received a teaching certificate from the Lviv Conservatory in 1931 and graduated in music from Lviv University in 1935. From 1936 he appeared as a professional soloist, sang in ensembles (the Warsaw radio quartet until 1939), and directed various choirs. In the 1940s he was the musical director of the Stanislav Franko Drama Theater in Stanyslaviv (see Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Academic Music and Drama Theater). A postwar displaced person in Germany, in 1945, together with Hryhorii Kytasty, he organized and directed the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus. He emigrated to the United States of America in 1949 and conducted a choir and children’s orchestra in Rochester, New York State, in the 1950s. In the 1960s he conducted the Ukrainian National Choir and a church choir in Los Angeles. He is the author of various musical and choir arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]