Leontovych String Quartet

Leontovych String Quartet (Kvartet im. M. Leontovycha). A group established in 1971 to continue the traditions of the Leontovych Music Society of the 1920s. Based in Kyiv, its members (2002) include Oleh Krysa and P. Krysa (violins), B. Deviatov (viola), and V. Pentaleiev (cello). Since 1978 the quartet members, who also work as instructors at the Kyiv Conservatory, have been playing rare instruments made by Italian masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. The quartet has won acclaim at both the 16th Leo Weiner International Competition and the 2nd International Festival of String Quartets in Vilnius. In 1988 it visited the United States to perform at the United Nations in New York and at the ‘Music Mountain’ festival in Connecticut. The quartet's repertoire includes works by F. Haydn, Peter Tchaikovsky, and S. Barber, as well as Mykola Lysenko, Myroslav Skoryk, Ihor Shamo, Arkadii Filipenko, and Mykola Leontovych.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]