Orest Romanovych Koval (* 29 October 1949, Lviv) is a Ukrainian pianist, organist, teacher, producer, musician and public figure in Sumy.
Member of the Presidium of the Association of Organists and Organ Masters of the National All-Ukrainian Music Union.
Education.
He studied at a music school in Lviv. Graduated from the P. Tchaikovsky Kyiv State Conservatory (1974, piano class - professor T. Kravchenko, 1983, organ class - professor H. Bulybenko).
Career
1974 - 1989 - piano teacher at the Sumy Music College.
1989 - 1991 - soloist-organist of the Rivne Regional Philharmonic.
1991 - 1993 - soloist-organist of the Sumy Regional Philharmonic.
1995 - Chairman of the Sumy City Organisation for the Development of the Organ and Chamber Music Union.
Honoured Worker of Culture of Ukraine.
Sumy period
After arriving in Sumy, he first taught at the Bortnyansky Music College. Once he was offered to learn the organ. It was then decided to install this instrument in Sumy. It was an interesting and promising business for Orest. However, while he was studying, the position of full-time organist was given to another musician. His colleagues then saw one reason for this irony: Orest was too "Western" for Sumy and somehow "defiantly Ukrainian", because he stubbornly refused to switch to the "correct" Russian language, even in private. He was offered the position of organ master. However, despite the vicissitudes, Orest's optimistic nature did not allow him to blame his fate, the "circumstances that had developed", or those who had created them.
"If I had immediately become an organist, I would hardly have achieved what I have achieved today. I had to survive, I had to learn a lot. ...In general, I think all problems are only good for a person, they make him or her look for new ways, move forward...
Thus, Orest embarks on a rather long journey of creative search, including work in other cities and tours...
"Since I didn't have a stable job, I had to organise concerts for myself," Orest recalls, "and I learned how to do it. I also felt that I wanted to communicate with people, not just play. It seemed to me that this would help me get rid of stage fright. In Rivne, when I was working as an organist there, I started to conduct my own concerts. But my excitement, on the contrary, increased two or three times. At first. And then I really came to understand that face-to-face communication alongside playing gives you immeasurably closer contact with people... So, having learnt how to organise concerts for myself, I thought: why not do the same for my friends? And call it a festival...
1993 - 2016 - organised and conducted 52 classical music festivals in Ukraine: 23 international festivals of organ and chamber music ORGANUM (Sumy), 3 all-Ukrainian and international festivals of jazz music Jazz-fest (Sumy), 21 international festival of J. S. Bach's music Bach-fest (Sumy), International Festival of Chamber Music (Shostka, 1994). All-Ukrainian Festival "30 Years of Organ Art in Ukraine" (108 concerts in 10 cities of Ukraine, 2000-2001), 3 international organ music festivals LIVALIA-FEST (Yalta, 2005, 2006, 2007).
He cooperates with international institutions, embassies of foreign countries in Ukraine, and has received grants from the International Renaissance Foundation six times. In 2002, with the support of the Austrian Embassy in Ukraine, he published a book in Ukrainian by the famous Austrian musician N. Harnoncourt "Music as a Language of Sounds".
In 1998, he founded the chamber music ensemble "Organum" (violin, flute, cello, harpsichord), with which he toured the cities of Ukraine.
Head of the music section of the Sobor Art Centre (Sumy), where he implemented the projects "Musical Gift", "Harpsichord Tinkles Silver", and a series of concerts with local musicians and Ukrainian artists.
Many musicians from Ukraine and abroad have visited Sumy: Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, and the United Kingdom. Famous organists performed: Eugenia Lisitsyna from Latvia, Eric Lebrun from France, Julian Gembalski from Poland; Ukrainian singer Olga Pasichnyk, clarinetist Veronika Kuzmina, Kyiv Saxophone Quartet, chamber choirs, orchestras, and ensembles. And each festival was a sip of world culture, heritage, and simply beautiful music for the city's intelligentsia and students. In 1994, the Jazz-fest was founded, and in 1995, the Bach-fest.
One of his activities is to support young talents. He has repeatedly organised masterclasses of the world's leading musicians for young Ukrainian performers (harpsichord, organ, violin, cello) and creative meetings with the music community, teachers, students and pupils of educational institutions of Sumy and Sumy region.
An essay about his activities was included in the almanac "Fellow Countrymen" (2003, published with the support of the Sumy Fellowship in Kyiv) and the book about prominent people of Sumy region "Who is Who in Sumy Region" (2005).
According to the rating vote of the experts of the regional newspaper Panorama, he was included in the Golden Ten for his contribution to the development of culture and spirituality of the region (2005) and in the Top 50 rating of the most authoritative and influential people in the region (2006, 10th place; 2007, 5th place; 2008, 1st place); in 2012 he was elected "Man of the Year". He was awarded the medal of the Sumy City Council "For Merit to the City" (2006) and "For Merit to the City", III degree (2009). He promotes classical music in a series of programmes on regional television.
His activities are widely covered in festival television programmes, in the regional and national press, and on the Internet.
Works
Cycles of subscription concerts "Evenings of Organ Music" and solo concerts-lectures with the use of visual means: films, slides highlighting the topics of the concerts (photos of composers, organs, works of painting, sculpture, architecture, characterising a particular historical and cultural epoch), programme slide films using paintings by Sumy artists and photographers during the performance of musical works.
1. The world of organ sounds.
2. Johann Sebastian Bach.
3. Classics and modernity.
4. History of organ music.
5. Baroque organ music.
6. Organ music of Romanticism.
7. Organ music of the XX century.
8. Ukrainian organ music.
9. Russian organ music.
10. German organ music.
11. French organ music.
12. Organ music of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
13. Organ music of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.
14. Creating cycles of chamber music concerts "Musical Gift".
15. Creation of a series of harpsichord concerts "The Harpsichord Tinkles Silver".
16. Development of the concept of the festival of music of J. S. Bach and the Baroque era.
17. Development of the concept and copyright of the Livadia-fest festival.
18. Author's conducting of concerts.
19. Editing of the book "Music as a Language of Sounds" by Austrian musician N. Harnoncourt and preparation for publication in Ukrainian.
20. A series of music television programmes under the title "At the concerts of the festivals "Organum", "Bach-fest", "Livadia-fest" and "Jazz-fest" on the channel of Sumy Regional State TV and Radio Company.
References
Muratova V. Music in the province: every city has its own festival // Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Weekly Mirror) - 1994. 5-11 November;
Sadova V. "Jubilee Bach-Fest 2000 in Sumy" // Progress. - 2000. - 9-15 November. http://postup.brama.com/001109/184_9_1.html [Archived 16 March 2017].
Fedorina A. History of two people and one festival, or how Bach was registered in Sumy // Young Ukraine. 2003. - 11 November.
