Roman (Avram) Kofman (born June 15, 1936, Kyiv) is a Ukrainian composer and conductor. Honored Artist of Ukraine (1994). Professor (1996). In 2011, he was nominated and shortlisted for the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.
He was born on June 15, 1936 in Kyiv. He graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory (violin class of Mykola Makarenko (1961), conducting class of Mykola Kanerstein (1971)). He established himself as one of the most serious and versatile conductors in the former Soviet Union. He has performed with more than 70 orchestras in Europe, America and other continents. In 2003-2008, he was General Music Director of the Bonn Opera (Germany), where he also led the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra. He was awarded the Officer's Cross, First Class, Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany[2]. Since 1990, he has been the chief conductor of the Kyiv Chamber Orchestra. Since 2012, he has been leading the Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonic of Ukraine. Among his most ambitious works are cycles of all symphonies by Schubert, Beethoven, and Mozart (the latter for the first time in Ukraine). "If a comparison with Mravinsky might sound too bold, all doubts disappear after this concert (Roman Kofman and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra)" (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany). "Roman Kofman is truly one of the world's greatest interpretive conductors" (The Telegraph, UK).
Author of film scores: "Only Three Weeks" (1971, t/f), "Lavra" (1972, co-authored).
In 2011, he published a fiction book "Pastoral Symphony, or How I lived under the Germans" (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2011), which includes two autobiographical stories.
