Yakym Dmytrovych Bigday (b. September 15, 1855, Yekaterinodar - d. November 30, 1909, Sukhumi) was a Ukrainian composer, folklorist, director, and state councilor.
He was born in the city of Yekaterinodar. He graduated from the Law Faculty of Odesa University. In 1896, he headed the Katerynodar Circle of Music and Drama Lovers. As a director, he staged Ukrainian operas "Christmas Night" and "A Cossack Beyond the Danube" by S. Hulak-Artemovsky. Together with P. Makhrovsky, he composed music for the play by Y. Kukharenko "The Black Sea Massacre in the Kuban in 1794-1796". He is the author of the vocal cycles "To Kobzar" based on Taras Shevchenko's poems and "Letters from Kuban" based on the poems of Ukrainian poets. His main work is the collection "Songs of the Kuban Cossacks" (1896-1901), which consisted of 14 issues with a total of 556 songs[1]. Together with P. Makhrovsky, he created the operetta "Black Sea Beat" based on the play of the same name by Y. Kukharenko.
