Prydatkevych, Roman

Prydatkevych, Roman [Придаткевич, Роман; Prydatkevyč], b 1 June 1895 in Żywiec, near Cracow, d 17 November 1980 in Owensboro, Kentucky. Violinist, composer, and pedagogue; full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1963. He studied at the Lysenko Higher Institute of Music in Lviv and at the Vienna Academy of Music, before serving in the Austrian army and the Ukrainian Galician Army, and then teaching music in Odesa (1920–2). He continuted his musical studies in Berlin and New York, and from 1930 he played in concerts throughout the United States of America and Canada, with a mainly Ukrainian repertoire. He organized the Ukrainian Trio, the Ukrainian Music Appreciation Society (with Hryhorii Pavlovsky), and the New York–based Ukrainian Conservatory (with Mykhailo Haivoronsky), which he directed in 1924–9. In 1946 he became a professor of music at Murray State University in Kentucky. His compositions were written primarily for violin and orchestra and include four symphonies, the Ukrainian Suite for chamber orchestra, works for violin and piano such as the Hutsul Suite, two rhapsodies, and a sonata. They have been performed by orchestras in Denver, Rochester, Detroit, and other cities by such noted conductors as Leopold Stokowski, Frederick Fennel, and Howard Hanson. His style is modern romantic, with frequent references to Ukrainian folk music.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]