Judith Hryhorivna Rozhavska (12 November 1923, Kyiv - 10 March 1982, the same place) was a Ukrainian composer.
She was born on 12 November 1923 in Kyiv. As a child, she was a musical prodigy, playing the piano from the age of five. During the war, she participated in the frontline concert brigades of the Stalingrad Front.
In 1946, she graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory with a degree in piano from E. Slyvak, and in 1947 - from the composition class of M. Hozenpud; in 1951, she completed postgraduate studies in piano (headed by E. Slyvak). In the postwar years, she was admitted to the Union of Composers.
She had an exceptional ear and a phenomenal musical memory - she could immediately write down the notes of a song while listening to it on the radio.
She was the wife of the Kyiv poet Rurik Nemyrovskyi (1923-1991). Her family and colleagues called her "Didi". She was a child prodigy: no wonder she wrote many musical compositions for children. However, as a person she was not frivolous, she took new trends in music and life seriously. She composed a number of works in the latest musical techniques (serial, dodecaphony). She was not appreciated by her era and was not even awarded honorary titles.
She died on 10 March 1982 in Kyiv and was buried in the village of Kycheievo (now part of Vorzel) in the Kyiv region.
Creative work
The best of creativity:
opera "The Tale of Lost Time" (libretto by herself and Lidiia Kompaniets after Yevhen Schwartz, 1971);
ballet The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (1966);
orchestral poem Dnipro (1948);
cantata My Soviet Ukraine (based on the words of Mykhailo Stelmakh, 1952);
cantata "Glory to Women Workers" (words by Olha Marunych, 1950),
Suite "Snow Maiden" (for soloist, reader and symphony orchestra, 1955);
Concerto "Fantasy" for orchestra of folk instruments (1949);
piano concerto with orchestra;
Sonatina piano concerto (1951).
She also composed 10 plays (1959); 3 miniatures (1966), 2 etudes (1973), Sonata (1976); numerous romances to the words of Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Lesia Ukrainka, George Byron, Pavlo Tychyna, Maksym Rylskyi, Volodymyr Sosiura, Vitalii Korotych, Anna Akhmatova; cycles of songs for children to the words of Soviet poets, including: "Picture Songs" (1962), "Proverbial Songs" (1966), "Riddle Songs" (1967), "Counting Songs" (1968), "My Flower Garden" (1969).
She composed music for dramatic performances, radio and television programmes, films; cartoons "Vesnianka" (1961), "Pushok and Druzhok" (1962), "The Merry Artist" (1963), "Tiav and Gav)" (1967).
She composed more than 100 Ukrainian songs based on poems by various authors - "They fly like seagulls", "Confession of Memory", "Around Your Windows", "Do You Hear, My Love?", etc. The song "They fly like seagulls" became one of the best Ukrainian songs of the twentieth century.
