Mykysha, Taras

Mykysha, Taras [Микиша, Тарас; Mykyša], b 2 February 1913 in Pryimivka (now Pryimivshchyna), Lubny county, Poltava gubernia, d 15 March 1958 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Pianist, teacher, and composer; son of Mykhailo Mykysha. He studied initially in Kyiv and Moscow; his formative years of 1927–33, however, were spent in Vienna, where he studied at the Academy of Music with Joseph Marx (composition) and others (graduating in 1930), and at the Klavier Meisterschule under P. Weingarten (finishing both theory and piano classes in 1933). In 1932 he won the first of several prizes at international music competitions and in 1933 started appearing as a soloist. Renouncing his Soviet citizenship in 1935, he remained in the West and toured extensively (appearing also with orchestras) in Hungary, Romania, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Holland, and Sweden. From 1947 he worked in Buenos Aires as a piano teacher. His Ukrainian concert repertoire included works by Viktor Kosenko, Vasyl Barvinsky, Lev Revutsky, and Mykola Kolessa. Mykysha also composed a number of piano works based on Ukrainian folk songs and melodies. These include Ukrainian Rhapsody, six sonatas, seven fugues, variations, preludes, dances, and chamber music.

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