Bohdan-Yulian Pyurko (4 July 1906, Nemyriv, now Lviv Oblast, Ukraine - 23 October 1953, Detroit, USA) was a Ukrainian conductor and teacher.
Bohdan-Yulian Pyurko (son of Mykhailo) was born on 4 November 1906 in Nemyriv. He received his initial musical studies at home from his mother (piano) and grandfather (Piurko Theodore Ivanovych, a Greek Catholic priest, a wingman of the Lviv Chapter). Studied at the Sambir Gymnasium. While studying at the gymnasium, he became interested in choral singing, sang in the Sambir Boyan, and studied piano. After graduating from the gymnasium in 1923, Bohdan Piurko continued his studies at the Mykola Lysenko Higher Music Institute in Lviv (with Vasyl Barvinsky) and the Prague Conservatory.
In 1931-1932, Bohdan-Yulian Piurko was a concertmaster at the Kyiv Opera; from 1933, he was the director of the department of the Mykola Lysenko Music Institute and the conductor of the Boyan Choir in Drohobych (first place at the 1942 choir competition in Lviv).
He was a great lover of sports. In 1934, he took a direct part in the creation of the Vatra sports club (Drohobych), especially since many of the club's athletes sang in the Boyan choir. With the money he won in the lottery, he bought 12 sets of sports uniforms and accessories. On 5 September 1934, at a meeting in the premises of the Zorya society, Bohdan Piurko, a professor at the Ivan Franko Ukrainian Gymnasium in Drohobych, was elected the first chairman of the Vatra (Drohobych). He headed the club until 1935, when he was replaced by Volodymyr Solchanyk.
From September 1942, Bohdan Piurko headed the musical department of the Ivan Franko Subcarpathian Theatre (Drohobych). In mid-July 1944, the Boian and the Franko Theatre temporarily ceased their activities due to the Soviet offensive. Some singers and artists emigrated to the West, including Bohdan Piurko and his family.
In 1946, in Karlsfeld, near Munich, Germany, Pyurko headed the musical and vocal section of the public committee for the celebration of the 85th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko's death, involving more than a hundred participants. An important stage of Bohdan Piurko's stay in the IDP camp was the organisation of a symphony orchestra, with which he gave concerts of classical music in Karlsfeld, Badreichenhal, and Munich. Having gathered around him almost all the prominent figures of emigrant vocal and musical life, in 1946 Piurko initiated the creation of the Ukrainian Opera Ensemble (UOA) in Munich. It was "...an attempt to continue the activities of the Lviv Opera House".
In 1949, Bohdan Piurko and almost the entire Ukrainian Opera Ensemble arrived in New York, where they gave a series of concerts, one of which took place at Carnegie Hall, where Piurko performed as a concert pianist.
Later, the artists moved to Detroit, where in 1953 Pyurko organised and conducted concerts of Ukrainian symphonic music performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
On 23 October 1953, Bohdan-Yulian Piurko died in Detroit, where he was buried.
