Vasyl Kyrylovych Shut (26 April 1899, Zolotonosha, Cherkasy Oblast - 23 August 1982, Chicago) was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, and representative of the Ukrainian diaspora in Chicago.
He was born in Zolotonosha into a large family. His father was an accountant at the Zemstvo Board, and his mother was Kateryna from the Romanovskyi family. Since childhood, he was fond of drawing and music. At first, he studied the mandolin and even organised a small string orchestra with his classmates. At the age of 15, he started playing the piano. At the age of 16, he started writing his own compositions.
In 1926, he left his parents' house and went to Pereiaslav, where he became a member of the amateur theatre. There he fell in love with the ballerina Maria Rosinska, whom he soon married.
His new job search led the future composer to Kyiv, where he met his aunt, who welcomed his nephew, and a few days later brought him to the Mykola Lysenko Kyiv Music and Drama Institute. During the entrance exams, he performed his sonata and was enrolled as a student. He studied in the composition class of Vasyl Zolotarev. In 1930, at the final exam, Vasyl Shut brilliantly performed his first symphony in a piano arrangement. However, he never received his diploma because he had an unsatisfactory grade in the theory of Marxism-Leninism.
In the autumn of 1943, the Shutov family travelled to the West and lived for some time in Breslau (now Wroclaw). After Breslau, the Shutov family stayed in a camp for displaced persons in Hanover, where the composer took an active part in the life of the community. He taught children to play the piano.
In 1951, the couple emigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago. This period was the most productive in his work. Only two years had passed since the composer's arrival in the United States, and the entire Ukrainian community in Chicago already knew about him.
He died during the summer holidays, on 23 August 1982, in Chicago. Admirers of his talent came to see the famous composer to his last journey in such numbers that the hall of St Sophia's Church could not accommodate them all.
