Roman Savytskyi (11 March 1907, Sokal, now Lviv region - 12 January 1960, Philadelphia, USA) was a Ukrainian pianist, teacher and music critic, founder of the Ukrainian Music Institute in America. Husband of the writer Ivanna Savytska, father of Roman Savytskyi (musicologist, bibliographer).
Biography
Born in Sokal (Galicia, now Lviv region). He graduated from the Mykola Lysenko Music Institute in Lviv (class of Vasyl Barvinsky) and the School of Masters (postgraduate studies) at the Prague Conservatory in the class of Willem Kurtz (1932). He gave concerts in Galicia, Kyiv, Dnipro, Germany, and the USA. He performed on the radio. He collaborated with the Boyan Drohobych ensemble. He taught piano at the Mykola Lysenko Music Institute in Lviv and at its Stryi and Sambir branches.
He was an associate professor at the Lviv Conservatory and dean of the piano faculty (1939-1941). Music editor of Lviv Radio (1941-1944). He systematically published music-critical notes in the Lviv press of the 1930s. He was the secretary of the Union of Ukrainian Professional Musicians (SUPROM) in Lviv.
After the Second World War, he left Lviv and lived in the United States from 1949.
He was the founder and director of the music school in Berchtesgaden (Germany, 1946-1949) and the Ukrainian Music Institute in America (1952-1959).
Creative heritage
Piano arrangements of folk melodies for young people, articles, reviews, work "Basic Principles of Piano Pedagogy".
The pianist Savytskyi had outstanding works of piano classics in his concert repertoire, but he was most noted as a promoter of Ukrainian music. He played a lot of compositions by M. Lysenko, N. Nyzhankivskyi, M. Kolessa, Z. Lysko, B. Kudryk, L. Revutskyi, and V. Kosenko. He was most fond of the music of V. Barvinsky and in 1938 performed for the first time a monographic programme of his works. Savytskyi was also the first performer of Vasyl Barvinskyi's piano concerto - he played it in March 1939 at the Atlantic Concert Hall (now the Maria Zankovetska National Academic Ukrainian Drama Theatre) at the Shevchenko Evening on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the poet's birth, conducted by Mykola Kolessa.
Sound recordings of R. Savytskyi's performance were released on a CD: Roman Savytskyi. Archival recordings - Lviv, 2010.
Roman Savytskyi had many students in Lviv, in Berchtesgaden, and in the USA. Among Savytsky's best students were Oleh Kryshtalsky, Virko Baley, Yuriy Oliynyk, and Yuliana Osinchuk. Kryshtalsky described his teacher as "a virtuoso pianist of pure, clear, and precise playing style. He played concerts, and there was less lyricism in his playing."
The School of Arts in Truskavets, Lviv region, is named after Roman Savytskyi. Since 2001, the Roman Savytsky Festival of Young Pianists has been held at this school.
