Yakiv Stepovy

Who was Yakiv Stepovy?

Yakiv Stepovy - was a Ukrainian composer, teacher, and music critic. Stepovy was born Yakiv Yakymenko in Kharkiv, in the Russian Empire. Stepovy's older brother, Theodore Yakymenko, was also a composer. Stepovy was a representative of the Ukrainian musical intelligentsia of the 20th century. He was one of the founders of the national school of composition and composed in the tradition of Mykola Lysenko.

Stepovy was a graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied with Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and graduated in 1914.

During World War I, Stepovy was recruited to the military, where he worked as a secretary on a hospital train. He served in the military for almost three years, until he managed to get released in April 1917. After this he settled in Kiev where he worked as a teacher at the Kiev Conservatory and a musical critic.

He was a master at choral and piano works, the author of music collections for children, teacher of the Kiev Conservatory and founder of the State vocal quartet.