Verykivs′ky, Mykhailo Ivanovych

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(b Kremianets, Volhynia region, 8/Nov 20, 1896; d Kiev, June 14, 1962). Ukrainian composer and conductor. He attended the Kiev Conservatory where he studied with Yavorsky, graduating in 1923. In 1919 he had already been appointed director of the Ukrainian National Chorus and later ran the Leontovych Society (1921–8). He later conducted both the Kiev Opera (1926–8) and the Khar′kiv Opera (1928–35) and was invited to appear as guest conductor in Kiev, Khar′kiv, Moscow and – during World War II – Ufa. For a while (1928–30) he was head of VUTORM, the All-Ukrainian Society of Revolutionary Musicians. He was appointed to teach at the Lysenko Institute while still a student and later taught, from 1946 as a professor, at the Kiev Conservatory, retiring in 1960. He was the first Ukrainian composer of the Soviet era to write a ballet – Pan Kanyovs′ky...