Mykola Filaretovych Kolessa (December 6, 1903, Sambir, Kingdom of Galicia and Volhynia - June 8, 2006, Lviv) was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, teacher, and founder of the Ukrainian conducting school.
Mykola Filaretovych was born in Sambir in the family of the prominent Ukrainian folklorist Filaret Kolessa. It was on that day that Western Ukraine in Lviv congratulated the composer Mykola Lysenko on the 35th anniversary of his creative activity. And when the next day Filaret Mykhailovych Kolesa entered the box of the Lviv Opera House, where Mykola Lysenko and Ivan Franko were sitting, and told them about the birth of his son, Mykola Lysenko suggested that the boy be named Mykola.
Mykola Kolessa grew up in an atmosphere of music and singing. His father-in-law was the famous opera singer Modest Mencinsky. "When my sisters and I grew up," the composer later said, "we often sang Ukrainian folk songs with our parents. And during vacations, we always went to the mountains in the Boikivshchyna and Lemkivshchyna. Here I spent hours enjoying folk melodies that my father recorded on a phonograph." Mykola was not yet five years old when he heard melodies of a different kind-the songs and dumas of Poltava region. Since Mykola's parents were ardent supporters of the Boyan Singing Society, Mykola was introduced to choral works by Mykola Lysenko, Stanislav Liudkevych, Anatolii Vakhnyanyn, and Denys Sichynskyi at the society's concerts.
In 1911, his parents sent him to study at the Mykola Lysenko Music Institute. However, the events of 1914-17 (World War I) forced the Koless to leave their home and seek refuge in Vienna. There Mykola studied at a gymnasium and took private piano lessons. Later, he studied at the private school of the Italian pianist Marietta de Gelli.
From his youth, he belonged to Plast and took an active part in its activities. He was awarded one of the highest Plast orders, the Eternal Flame in Gold.
Upon returning to Lviv, Mykola became interested in conducting. So when he was asked to replace the conductor of the men's choir of the gymnasium, his intentions to master the conducting profession were finally established. However, his parents chose a different path for Mykola, and from 1922 to 1923 he studied at the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. However, after attending a concert in Krakow where Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 was performed, Mykola Kolessa finally decided to leave medicine and become a professional musician. He went to Prague and in 1924 entered the Charles University, Faculty of Philosophy and Slavic Studies, and also enrolled as a free student at the Drahomanov Pedagogical Institute, Faculty of Music, where he studied harmony with Fedir Yakymenko and conducting with Platonida Shchurovska.
In 1925, Mykola Kolessa was accepted as a second-year student at the Department of Composition and Conducting at the Prague Conservatory, where he graduated in 1928. His first professional work was the Ukrainian Suite (1928). It was premiered the same year at the Prague Conservatory, and later (at the suggestion of Stanislav Liudkevych) in Lviv. In the Ukrainian Suite, the flavor of Hutsul folklore, in particular, is clearly evident. The finale of the suite is called "Kolomyika".
After graduating from the conservatory, Mykola Kolesa entered the School of Higher Studies, where he studied composition with Vitezslav Novak, whose students included Nestor Nyzhankivskyi and Vasyl Barvinskyi. At that time, the following works appeared in the composer's oeuvre: Variations for Symphony Orchestra, Piano Quartet, and two suites for piano - "Trinkets" and "Passacaglia, Scherzo, Fugue". With his diploma as a conductor and composer, Mykola Kolesa returned to Lviv. However, he did not immediately manage to find a job. For some time, he taught at the opera studio at the Conservatory of the Polish Society, conducted the Stryiskyi Boian choir, and taught courses to rural conductors. Even then, the foundation of his conducting school was laid.
Later, Mykola Filaretovych received a permanent position as a teacher of theoretical disciplines and conducting at the Mykola Lysenko Higher Music Institute in Lviv (1931-1939).
He collected manuscripts, published articles, and memoirs about Bohdan-Ihor Antonych.
In 1953-1965, he was the rector, and since 1957, a professor at the Lviv Conservatory (now the Mykola Lysenko Lviv National Music Academy).
He actively performed as a conductor with the symphony orchestras of the Lviv Philharmonic and the Opera and Ballet Theater (1944-1947). At the same time, he was the artistic director and chief conductor of the Trembita Choir (1946-1948).
Mykola Kolessa brought up a whole galaxy of conductors known far beyond the borders of Ukraine. Among them: Stepan Turchak, Ivan Hamkalo, Yurii Lutsiv, Ivan Yuziuk, Yevhen Vakhniak, Taras Mykytka, Bohdan Antkiv, Orest Kurash, Roman Fylypchuk, Yevhen Dosenko, Bohdan Herianenko, and many others, and his textbook "Fundamentals of Conducting Technique" remains the main textbook for several generations of musicians to this day. Lviv State Music School No. 2 was named after him.
He died in Lviv and was buried in field 3 of Lychakiv Cemetery.
Awards and honors
academician
Order of the Badge of Honor (1948)
Order of Lenin (1961)
Order of Friendship of Peoples (1981)
People's Artist of the USSR (1991)
Laureate of the Taras Shevchenko State Prize of Ukraine (1983)
Honored Artist of Ukraine
Order of Merit II class (1998)
Order of Merit I class (2000) [full cavalier]
nominee of the "Galician Knight"
Plast Order of Eternal Flame in gold
Honorary Award of the President of Ukraine (1993)
Chevalier of the Order of Yaroslav the Wise, V century.
Hero of Ukraine (with the Order of the State, January 21, 2002).
Major musical works
1st and 2nd symphonies (1950, 1966)
"Ukrainian Suite" (1928)
"Symphonic Variations (1931)
Suite "In the Mountains"
piano works: "Pictures of the Hutsul Region", "Three Kolomyikas", "Hutsul Prelude", "About Dovbush".
Students.
Stefan Turchak, Ivan Hamkalo, Yuriy Lutsiv, Ivan Yuziuk, Yevhen Vakhniak, Taras Mykytka, Bohdan Antkiv, Orest Kurash, Roman Filipchuk, Yevhen Dosenko, Bohdan Herianenko, Ihor Levenets, Roman Nykyforiv.
