Lysenko Higher Institute of Music

Lysenko Higher Institute of Music (Vyshchyi muzychnyi instytut im. M. Lysenka). A school formed in 1903 by the Lysenko Music Society in Lviv. An institute from 1907, it was an important training facility for Ukrainian musicians in Galicia. It grew from 6 teachers with 50 pupils in 1907 to 25 teachers with 248 pupils in 1935. Its directors included Anatol Vakhnianyn (1903–8), Stanyslav Liudkevych (1908–15), and Vasyl Barvinsky (1916–40). The institute began establishing branches in 1911 and eventually formed nine of them (Peremyshl, Stanyslaviv, Stryi, Drohobych, Kolomyia, Ternopil, Zolochiv, and Boryslav). In 1935 the branches employed 30 teachers with approximately 350 pupils. The institute had its own building in Lviv from 1916 and published Muzychnyi vistnyk (The Music Bulletin) bimonthly. In 1940 it was amalgamated with the Lviv Conservatory, and its branches were turned into independent music schools. Its structures and ethos later provided a model for the establishment of Ukrainian music societies in the West after the Second World War.

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