Jedlička, Aloiz

Jedlička, Aloiz, b 14 December 1821 in Kukleny, Bohemia, d 15 September 1894 in Poltava. Ukrainian composer, folklorist, and pedagogue of Czech origin. After studying at the Prague Conservatory (1837–42), he moved to Ukraine. In 1845 he became acquainted with Taras Shevchenko. From 1848 to 1892 he taught piano at the Poltava Institute for Daughters of the Nobility, where he also organized a choir. His piano pieces such as ‘Leaf from an Album,’ ‘Kerchief,’ ‘Recollections of Poltava,’ and ‘Flowers of Ukraine’ are based on Ukrainian folk music. He collected Ukrainian folk songs and published them in two collections: Sobranie malorossiiskikh narodnykh pesen (A Collection of Little Russian Folk Songs, 1861) and Sto malorossiiskikh narodnykh pesen (A Hundred Little Russian Folk Songs, 1869). He also did arrangements of folk songs and edited the musical score of Ivan Kotliarevsky’s Natalka Poltavka (Natalka from Poltava). Several works of Ukrainian poets were set to music by Jedlička.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]