Bohdan Mykhailovych Sapeliuk (17 June 1942, Buzhok - 3 March 2001, Lviv) was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, teacher, electronic and software engineer.
He is widely known for his marches for brass band. The most famous of them are "Kalyna Pamyati" and "For the Motherland".
He was born in Buzhok. From an early age, he played various musical instruments, including wind instruments: clarinet, trumpet, baritone, trombone. Together with his father's amateur orchestra, he performed at various local celebrations.
After graduating from school, he joined the Soviet Army. He did his military service in Leningrad in a military orchestra.
In 1964, he entered Lviv Polytechnic. During his studies, he had a considerable workload - two evenings of rehearsals of the Polytechnic's amateur symphony orchestra, two evenings of the LvBS orchestra, and two more of playing in the dance orchestra of the institute's club. He studied almost exclusively with "excellent" grades and studied technical literature in his spare time. He received a degree in electronic engineering and later retrained as a programmer.
As an orchestra director, Sapeliuk imposed iron discipline on the brass band of the Polytechnic. Due to the different levels of amateur musicians, he sometimes adapted his own scores to the real capabilities of the performers. He collaborated with military orchestras of the city, in particular with the orchestra of the Western Operational Command, which included his compositions in its repertoire.
Creative work
Bohdan Sapeliuk was one of the first composers of military music of the time of independent Ukraine, and in his compositions he preferred the themes of Sich and insurgent songs.
He contributed to the revival of ceremonial music, and his works were included in the first Ukrainian marching audio recording performed by the Halychyna Brass Band (1991), along with works by other composers such as Serhiy Voytyuk (marches "Stepan Bandera", "Symon Petliura", "Yevhen Konovalets" and others), Bohdan Hrynevskyi (March on Hutsul Motifs) and Shota Chikhradze (Sokilskyi and other marches by Yaroslav Yaroslavenko).
The majority of Bohdan Sapeliuk's compositions are for medium-sized mixed brass band. Counting, as a rule, on a derivative rather than an orchestral symphonic performance, the author often did not complete the oboe and bassoon parts in the score, some marches do not have saxophone parts, and one of the marches, "Povstansky", was written for a small brass band. Sapeliuk wrote "Ukrainian Insurgents" over several years: he revised and added various versions. For the trio, he first composed a version using the melody of the song "On the Other Side of the Mountain", and then - with the author's theme. Both versions were first performed at a rehearsal of the ZOC brass band at the end of February 2001.
Not wanting to lose the first version, but personally preferring the author's version, the compiler decided to preserve both in this edition: the first one in numbers "4" and "5", the other in numbers "4A" and "5A", leaving the conductor to choose the performance.
List of pieces
Marches:
Kalyna Pamyati
Sich Glory
For the Motherland!
It is not time
Youth to Christ
Cheers!
Remembrance
Insurgent march
Ukrainian insurgents
Arranged for brass band:
Mykola Lysenko - Second Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes "Dumka Shumka"
Myroslav Skoryk - "The Hazel was noisy" (for voice and orchestra)
Mykhailo Verbytskyi - Symphony No. 6, part 1
F. Harold - Overture to the opera "Zampa"
A. Adan - Overture to the opera "If I were a king"
W. A. Mozart - Overture to the opera "Titus" ("My Lord Titus")
Friedrich Flotow - Overture to the opera "Martha"
Giuseppe Verdi - Grand Finale from Act I of the opera Aida
Ambrosio Toma - Overture to the opera "The Minion"
Ambrosio Toma - Overture to the opera "Raymond or the Queen's Secret"
Eulenberg - "Concert in the Forest"
