Ukrainian composer, one of the representatives of the Kyiv Avant-Garde composing group.
Biography.
The composer's father was a violinist, played in the Opera House Orchestra, the Radio Committee Orchestra, and the Red Army String Quartet at the House of Officers. His mother was a singer. In 1937, when Leonid was only 2 years old, his father was arrested and shot almost immediately; many of his relatives were also arrested. At the age of five, Leonid entered a music school to study violin, where he studied only until May 1941, as the school ceased to function due to the war.
After the war, he continued to study on his own ("my mother managed to buy a piano with miraculously surviving government bonds"), and in 1951 he began taking private lessons, while studying economics at Kyiv University (1951-1956). In 1954, he entered the composition faculty of the Kyiv Conservatory, where he studied first in the class of Levko Revutsky (1954-1956), and later with Borys Liatoshynsky. "He was not a dogmatist, he gave his students enough freedom," Grabovsky recalls of Lyatoshynsky, "and his example, the study of his works with all their richness, brightness of color, honest and verified attitude to the theme of its realization, was a great school for us. From him, we gained great and genuine patriotism, a sense of Ukrainian melody."
Kyiv avant-garde
In the mid-1950s, Hrabovskyi and his circle began to gradually get acquainted with Western European music of the twentieth century, as well as previously banned works by Soviet composers (Shostakovich, Prokofiev). The composer claims that Maurice Ravel's play The Play of Water, which they first heard performed by Sviatoslav Richter on June 30, 1954, was "a world unknown before." They were introduced to Western music through the distribution of long-playing records, the publication of sheet music for works that had been banned until recently, and visits by foreign orchestras, which, however, stopped in 1965. His acquaintance with music was gradual: first, the works of the Impressionists, then Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok (1957-1958), Lutosławski (1959, "Mournful Music"), music of the Newcomers (1960), and later Penderecki, Serotsky, Huretsky, Schaeffer, Stockhausen, Berio, Xenakis, and Messiaen.
In 1965, a group was formed, later called the Kyiv Avant-Garde, which included, in addition to Hrabovskyi, composers Valentyn Silvestrov, Vitalii Hodziatskyi, Volodymyr Huba, and conductor Ihor Blazhkov. Later, they were joined by composers Volodymyr Zahortsev, Sviatoslav Krutikov, Yevhen Stankovych, and Ivan Karabyts. Valentyn Bibik from Kharkiv and Andrzej Nikodemovych from Lviv also maintained contacts with the Kyiv avant-garde community. Musicologist Halyna Mokriieva also belonged to the Kyiv avant-garde.
Kyiv, Moscow
During 1966-1969. Hrabovsky taught composition at the Kyiv Conservatory. He also worked as a composer in the field of film and theater music[1]. Among the films for which he composed music (11 feature films in total and a number of popular science films[6]) are The Well for the Thirsty (1965), Midsummer Eve (1968), and Wolf Island (1969), "The Man Who Could Make Miracles" (1969, cartoon), "Prisoners of Beaumont" (1970), "Insight" (1971), "Fraction" (1972, cartoon), "In the World of Birds" (1974, cartoon), "Dreaming and Living" (1974, dir. Yuriy Ilyenko), "Way to go!" (1975, cartoon), "Tiap-Lap" (1977, cartoon), "Atonement for Other People's Sins" (1978), "Red Field" (TV, 1980), etc.
In 1981 he moved to Moscow. He worked as a contributor and translator, and later as an editor of the magazine Soviet Music, and from time to time composed music for films. However, Hrabovskyi did not have his own apartment in Moscow and considered living there "unpromising." So he looked for ways to move to the West.
THE UNITED STATES.
Initially, Grabowski thought about going to Poland, where the Warsaw Autumn Festival was taking place, but he was unable to do so. Eventually, however, Hrabowski managed to leave for the United States, where he has lived since August 7, 1990. He lived in Boston until October 1990, after which he moved to New York. He works as a freelance composer, in particular, he collaborates with the Continuum ensemble. He has given guest lectures on contemporary Ukrainian music at various universities. For 13 years he worked as a classical music consultant in a music store. He studies computer music technologies, in particular Common Lisp.
