Roman Turovsky-Savchuk (born 16 May 1961, Kyiv) is an artist and lutenist-composer.
Born in Kyiv on 16 May 1961, Roman Turovsky-Savchuk studied at the Taras Shevchenko State Art High School, the Kyiv Art Institute, and the creative workshops of Mykhailo Turovsky, his father. He emigrated to New York in 1979 and continued his studies at the Parsons School of Design[en], while also studying lute and composition under the tutelage of Patrick O'Brien, Pierluigi Chimma, Leonid Grabovsky and Davide Zannoni.
Turovsky began composing in the early 1990s, at the same time as he began his career as a painter. His first solo exhibition opened in June 2006 in New York, and his second in February 2013. Eight of Turovsky's paintings are kept at the Marian Gallery of the University of Dayton in the United States.
Turovsky's compositional work is limited to the idiom of the baroque lute and torban. He is the author of numerous instrumental and vocal compositions, which include more than 500 arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs for Renaissance and Baroque lutes. Since 1996, he has signed his compositions "Sautscheck", i.e. the German transliteration of his surname, and in some cases "Ioannes Leopolita". His music was widely distributed under these allonyms, and caused considerable irritation among musicologists, who perceived his works as a deliberate hoax due to their overtly baroque style.
As a lutenist, Turovsky participates in the New York Bandura Ensemble and Yulian Kitastoy's Radio Banduristan. In December 2011 and January 2013, Turovsky had a benefit concert on the Dutch radio station Concertzender. His music was also used in a television programme by Mark Stech about George Narbut (KontaktTV Toronto, "Through the Eyes of Culture #55") in March 2013.
Roman Turovsky-Savchuk is one of the founders of two international associations - Vox Saeculorum[en] and Delian Society[en] - which advocate the preservation of tonal music.
Discography
Massimo Marchese "Dialogues with Time" (DaVinci Classics CD00028, Italy/Japan 2017)
Chrostopher Wilke "De Temporum Fine Postludia II" (Polyhymnion CD002, USA 2019)
Chrostopher Wilke "De Temporum Fine Postludia" (Polyhymnion CD001, USA 2016)
Daniel Shoskes "Weiss Undercover" (USA, 2016)
Daniel Shoskes "Lautenschmaus" CD (USA, 2011)
Angelo Barricelli "From Borderlands" (Lira Classica, Italy, 2008)
Thomas Schall "Die Laute im Barock" LCCD 0202 (The Lute Corner, Switzerland, 2002)
Bibliography
De Tabulatuur, #89, July 2007, p.12-13
Archived copy. Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Cited 14 March 2013.
Archived copy. Archived from the original on 21 October 2016. Cited 26 November 2016.
Kairos, een meditatie op hedendaagse muziek
Early Music America, 2007 (summer issue), p. 43
