Yulian Balukh (born 2 January 1940, Hnatkovychi village, Peremyshl powiat, Lviv Voivodeship, now Peremyshl powiat, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland) is a Ukrainian conductor, associate professor of orchestral conducting at the Lviv Conservatory.
Yulian Balukh was born on 2 January 1940 in the village of Hnatkovychi in Zakerzonia, Poland. In July 1944, Soviet troops captured the village and subsequently announced the transfer of the territory to Poland, and in 1945 Ukrainian families were voluntarily and forcibly deported to the USSR. The same fate befell the Balukh family, who, during the forced resettlement, found themselves in the village of Sokilnyky, then the administrative centre of the district of the same name, in the Lviv region.
He studied at Sokilnyky secondary school. In 1960, he graduated from the Filaret Kolessa Lviv Music and Pedagogical College. After graduation, in 1960-1962 he worked as a teacher at the Kolomyia Pedagogical College. In 1962-1968, he studied at the Faculty of Orchestral Conducting of the Mykola Lysenko Lviv State Conservatory, where he studied at the class of opera and symphony conducting of Professor, People's Artist of Ukraine Mykola Kolessa. Yulian Yosypovych began his professional conducting career as an assistant to the head of the Symphony Orchestra, Professor Mykola Kolessa.
In 1968-1974, he worked (part-time) as the artistic director and conductor of the Bibra Folk Symphony Orchestra[1], a winner of many regional and republican festivals.
In 1968-1970, he worked as a teacher, and in 1970-1976, he was a senior lecturer and conductor of the opera class and opera studio at the Lviv Conservatory. During his years of work in the opera studio and opera class, Yulian Yosypovych has conducted a number of opera productions, namely:
"Aleko" by S. Rachmaninoff;
"La Traviata" by G. Verdi;
"Eugene Onegin by P. Tchaikovsky;
"Milan by G. Mayboroda.
Under his baton, such little-known works in Ukraine were first performed in Lviv:
1968 - The Story of a Soldier by Igor Stravinsky;
1969 - scenes from the opera Dovbush by S. Liudkevych;
1970 - the third act of the opera "Dido and Aeneas" by G. Purcell.
In 1976, he started working at the Department of Folk Instruments, heading the student orchestra of Ukrainian folk instruments. Under his leadership, the orchestra was enriched with new qualities of sound, the repertoire of the collective expanded significantly, and the performance level increased. A large number of graduates of Yulian Balukh's opera training and orchestral conducting classes now adorn the activities of many opera houses, philharmonic societies, creative concert groups and artistic educational institutions.
Since 1991, she has been an associate professor of orchestral conducting. During his work at the Lviv Conservatory, Yulian Yosypovych prepared a number of scientific and methodological developments and scientific studies, including:
"Conducting Schemes in Different Textbooks" (comparative characteristics);
"Basic pedagogical principles of Professor M. Kolessa";
"Creative portraits of the graduates of Professor M. Kolessa's class".
Yulian Balukh is active in socially useful activities. As a member of the socio-cultural society "Nadsiannia", he organised a choir that regularly performs for the public in Lviv and for Ukrainians living in Poland. He was also once the artistic director of the Cheremosh folk song and dance ensemble.
