Valerii Yakovych Petrenko (born December 23, 1939, Dnipro) is a Ukrainian classical guitarist and composer. People's Artist of Ukraine (1999).
1965 - graduated from the Tchaikovsky Moscow Music College (class of O. M. Ivanov-Kramsky).
1973 - graduated from the Mykola Lysenko Lviv State Conservatory (class of H. Kazakov).
Since 1966 he has been performing on the stage. Since 1971 - soloist-instrumentalist of the Kyiv State Philharmonic (later - National Philharmonic of Ukraine).
1973 - first solo concert in the Mykola Lysenko Column Hall (Kyiv).
1971-1974 - taught guitar at the Reinhold Glier Music School in Kyiv.
He toured more than 30 countries (including Greece, Italy, France, Belgium, Norway, Israel, Chile, Nicaragua, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Peru, Portugal, Spain, and Russia).
He has accompanied concerts by Konstantin Ognevoy, Yuri Gulyaev, Anatoly Solovyanenko, Mykola Kondratyuk, and others.
His repertoire includes sonatas, suites, concertos for guitar and orchestra, Spanish flamenco, works by classical and contemporary composers.
He makes his own arrangements of famous classical works. Among them are the first to be performed on the guitar: "Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Glinka's Parting Nocturne, Tchaikovsky's Seasons Tchaikovsky, selected caprices by N. Paganini for violin, pieces by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and others.
He also performs Ukrainian, Russian and Gypsy romances.
He was the first performer in the former USSR of several significant works, including Joaquin Rodrigo's Aranjue Concerto (1982 in Minsk and Donetsk).
Composer Anatoliy Shevchenko dedicated his Carpathian Rhapsody to him.
In 1991, V. Petrenko released a solo album (Melodiya), which included Bach's Chaconne and Haydn's Menuet arranged by Andrés Segovia and virtuoso pieces by Spanish composers: "Spanish Serenade" by J. Malats, "Memories of the Alhambra", "Adelita" and "Mazurka in C Major" by Francisco Tarrega, and the waltz "Favorite" by Napoleon Costa.
In 1997, he began performing with the "Valeriy Petrenko Guitar Theater" programs and concerts.
He was repeatedly invited to join the jury of national and international guitar competitions. The first and second All-Ukrainian open guitar festivals-competitions held in Kyiv in 2001 and 2003, as well as the international festival-competition of guitar art "Guitar of the World" in Yalta were dedicated to his name.
Recognition
1987 - Honored Artist of the Ukrainian SSR
1999 - People's Artist of Ukraine
