Vasyl Povzun (22 February 1919, Trytelnyky - modern Volochysk district - 30 August 2011, Odesa) was a Ukrainian clarinetist and music teacher, Honoured Artist of Ukraine, Honorary Doctor of the Moldovan Academy of Music and Arts. In 2009, he was awarded the Badge of Honour of the Mayor of Odesa.
Biography.
During the years of Bolshevik "collectivisation", his family went to work in Kerch, leaving him to finish his studies. However, he left everything behind and went to his parents, finished eight years of school in a workers' settlement, went to work at a factory as an apprentice turner, and played in an amateur brass band.
In 1935-1938, he studied at the Odesa Music School (class of A. Moravek), in 1938-1941 - at the Odesa Conservatory - he was accepted after the third year without exams, in 1939-1941 - an artist of the Odesa Philharmonic Orchestra, clarinetist; from the fourth year he was called to the front.
In the Kuban, he completed an officer's course. Later, he was seconded to the orchestra of the Stalingrad Front Headquarters, then the Fourth Ukrainian Front.
After his demobilisation, he graduated from the Chisinau Conservatory in 1946, studying, among others, with Hryhorii Hirschfeld.
From 1946 to 1951, he worked as a soloist at the Moldavian Philharmonic.
In 1951-1953, he was vice-rector, and from 1953 to 1960 - rector of the Chisinau Conservatory.
In 1962-1968, he was rector of the Odesa Conservatory at the invitation of S. Orfeyev; during this time, a new academic building and a new student dormitory were built, an organ was installed in the concert hall, and the composition department, the department of folk instruments and the chamber ensemble were opened.
He left the rector's office due to a long illness, but later became the head of the chamber ensemble class. Among his students are, among others, People's Artist of the Republic of Moldova Evgenii Verbetskyi and Honoured Artist of Ukraine Volodymyr Tomashchuk, a soloist of the Odesa National Symphony Orchestra.
