Turning the pages back... April 16, 1892 (04/12/98)

Turning the pages back...

April 16, 1892

Osyp Zalesky was born in the village of Trostianets Malyi, Zolochiv county, about 50 miles east of Lviv, in Halychyna, on April 16, 1892. He studied musicology at the Lviv Conservatory in 1911-1914, then worked as a secondary school teacher.

In 1913, Zalesky established the Lira musical publishing house in Lviv, which he owned and operated until 1930. In 1916, he published the pioneering study "Pohliad na Istoriyu Ukrainskoyi Muzyky" (A Look at the History of Ukrainian Music), and nine years later, a dictionary of music in Ukrainian. Zalesky founded, directed and taught at the Stanyslaviv branch of the Lysenko Higher Institute of Music. He also conducted choirs in Lviv, Stanyslaviv, Yaroslav and, later, Vienna.

Emigrating to the U.S. in the 1950s, Zalesky settled in Buffalo, where he taught at the local branch of the Ukrainian Music Institute of America. He also continued to publish useful reference works on music, including "Zahalni Osnovy Muzychnoho Znannia" (General Principles of Musical Knowledge, 1958) and "Mala Ukrainska Muzychna Entsyklopedia" (Junior Ukrainian Encyclopedia of Music, 1971).

Throughout his career, Zalesky composed choral works, solo works for voice and piano miniatures. He died in Buffalo on March 13, 1984.

Source: "Zalesky, Osyp," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 5 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).