Pylyp Kozytskiy

Pylyp Omelyanovych Kozytskiy (Ukrainian: Пилип Омелянович Козицький; 23 November [O.S. 11 November] 1893), Letychivka — 27 April 1960, Kiev) was a Ukrainian composer, musicologist, professor, head of the department of history of music at the Kiev Conservatory, and Honored Artist of Ukraine SSR (1943).

Greatly influenced by expressionism, Kozytsky's musical works are a mixture of elements of Ukrainian folk music with social and patriotic characteristics, strongly rooted to the national school of classical music of Ukraine established by Mykola Lysenko.

Kozytskiy studied at the Kiev Theological Academy from 1917 and at the Kiev Conservatory from 1920, under Boleslav Yavorsky and Reinhold Glière. Between 1918-1924, he taught at the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute in Kiev, the Kharkiv Music and Drama Institute from 1925 to 1935, and the Kiev Conservatory. From 1938 to 1941 he worked as artistic director for the Ukrainian State Philharmonic (during the German-Soviet war).

A founding member of the Leontovych Music Society, he was also head of the Union of Soviet Composers of Ukraine from 1952 to 1956, and president of the Choral Society of the Ukrainian SSR from 1959 up to his death in 1960. Kozytskiy died in Kiev on 27 April 1960, and is buried in the Baikove Cemetery.

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