Tolba, Veniamin [Тольба, Венямін; Tol'ba, Venjamin], b 12 November 1909 in Kharkiv, d 13 April 1984 in Kyiv. Conductor and pedagogue. A graduate of the Kharkiv Music and Drama Institute (1932), he studied score reading with Dmitrii Shostakovich and conducting with Ya. Rosenstein. In 1931–44 he conducted the Kharkiv Theater of Opera and Ballet and lectured at the Kharkiv Conservatory. He then went on to the Kyiv Theater of Opera and Ballet (1944–59) and the Kyiv Conservatory (1946–73), where he lectured and conducted its opera studio. He premiered a number of works, including Mykhailo Verykivsky’s opera The Servant Girl (1943), Heorhii Maiboroda’s opera Arsenal (1960), and Herman Zhukovsky’s ballet Rostyslava (1955). He also orchestrated Mykola Lysenko’s opera Nocturne and edited Lev Revutsky’s Symphony No. 2.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]