Mykola Dmytrovich Leontovych

Who was Mykola Dmytrovich Leontovych?

Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych was a Ukrainian composer, choral conductor, priest, and teacher of international renown. His music was inspired by Mykola Lysenko and the Ukrainian nationalist music school. Leontovych specialized in a cappella choral music, ranging from original compositions, to church music, to elaborate arrangements of folk music.

Leontovych was born and raised in the Podolia region of the Russian Empire. He was educated as a priest in the Kamianets-Podilskyi Theological Seminary and later furthered his musical education at the Saint Petersburg Court Capella and private lessons with Boleslav Yavorsky. With the independence of the Ukrainian state in the 1917 revolution, Leontovych moved to Kiev where he worked at the Kiev Conservatory and the Mykola Lysenko Institute of Music and Drama. He is recognized for composing "Shchedryk" in 1904, known to the English speaking world as "Carol of the Bells" or as "Ring Christmas Bells." He is known as a martyr in the Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian Church, where he is also remembered for his liturgy, the first liturgy composed in the vernacular, specifically in the modern Ukrainian language. He was assassinated by a Soviet agent in 1921.