Oleksandr Ivanovych Leontiev (6 November 1963) is a singer, teacher, winner of the Grand Prix at the X International Song Contest "Amulets of Ukraine". He was awarded the Certificate of Honour of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine and holds the title of "Excellence in Education of Ukraine" (2003).
Biography.
Born on 6 November 1963 in the village of Levkivtsi, Tulchyn district, Vinnytsia region. His parents, Ivan Mykhailovych and Hanna Khomivna, worked for a long time in the forest industry and then at a local collective farm. Oleksandr's brother, Mykhailo, was born in 1952; sister, Halyna, in 1956. His father was a war veteran, he could play the balalaika, and his mother was a good singer.
At the age of five, Oleksandr started performing on the stage of the village club. At the age of 13, he learned to play the accordion, guitar, and percussion instruments. He performs with other boys in the vocal group of his native House of Culture, and later becomes its soloist and leader.
At the age of 19, he enters the preparatory department of the Music and Pedagogy Faculty of the Kyiv Pedagogical Institute. A year later he became a student and transferred to Vinnytsia to the same faculty.
In 1987, he received a diploma of a music teacher and was sent to work at the Bar Pedagogical College. There he worked as a teacher of accordion playing and also conducted group classes as a music teacher. Creates a vocal programme for the new music department of the school.
In 1989, he got married, and in 1990, he transferred to Tulchyn, where he started working as a music teacher at the secondary school No. 2 and together with his wife Svitlana raised his son Ivan, who was born in the same year.
Musical creativity
The revival of the traditions of the creative intelligentsia in Tulchyn dates back to the early 90s. The creative association "Oberih" was founded, where Oleksandr performed songs by local composers Oleksandr Petrov, Olha Yanushkevych to the lyrics of Nina Shavarska, Natalia Pohrebniak, Maria Yasakova and other poets of the association. Thanks to these composers and poets, Oleksandr has become a laureate and winner of various song festivals and competitions, and he also trains the younger generation of young performers, teaching them the art of singing. A whole galaxy of laureates and winners of regional, national and international competitions grows up among them. These are Katya Chorna, Vitaliy Udyma, Dasha Pogrebnyak, Masha Tymoshchuk, Vita Nechytailo, Zhenya Studylko, Vlada Yankovitskaya and many others.
In 2000, Oleksandr, together with his wife Svitlana, son Ivan, and Svitlana's mother Yevheniia Opanasivna, became winners of the regional festival of family creativity, and in 2001, Oleksandr and Svitlana won the first prize at the International Song Festival and Competition "Melody of Two Hearts" held in Kyiv.
In 2003, Oleksandr Leontiev was awarded the Certificate of Honour of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine and received the title of "Excellence in Education of Ukraine".
In the same year, Oleksandr moved to Vinnytsia and began working as a vocal teacher at the Vinnytsia College of Culture and Arts named after M. D. Leontovych, and was appointed head of the newly created vocal department at the college[cited in July 2019]. He creates a number of working curricula, including a pop singing programme, a vocal ensemble programme, a programme on pedagogical practice for the school's children's studio school, a programme on vocalists' performance practice, and a programme on the history of performance. He has written a number of methodological developments in pop vocal.
He combines his work at the school with teaching children to sing, first at the regional production centre Soyuz, and then at the school's children's studio. He has trained a number of winners of various children's song competitions and festivals, including international ones. Among them are Sasha Matkovska, Anton Skrypnyk, Nadia Suprigan, Masha Pedorchenko, Victoria Rysynets and others.
In 2005, with the songs of Olha Yanushkevych, Oleksandr Leontiev won the Grand Prix at the X International Song Contest "Amulets of Ukraine", as part of the festival "Krolevets Towels", which took place in the city of Krolevets, Sumy region.
Oleksandr's students also have achievements, so in 2010, Lutsk Malva took third place at the Xth Anniversary International Festival of Ukrainian Variety Art "West - XXI Century".
For some time, Oleksandr has been working as a soloist at the Vinnytsia Regional Philharmonic. He often performs at various city, regional and republican events and concerts.
In 2010, he released his first solo audio album "Songs Sung by the Heart". The majority of this album consists of songs by Anatoliy Haiduk, a talented Vinnytsia composer. The album "Songs of War" was released in 2011, and in 2013, work began on the classic album "Romances, Songs, Arias".
