Mykola Leontovych

Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych (13 December [O.S. 1 December] 1877 - 23 January 1921) was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, and teacher. Mykola Lysenko and the Ukrainian National Music School influenced his music. Leontovych specialized in a cappella choral music, which included original compositions, church music, and intricate arrangements of folk songs.

Leontovych was born and raised in the Russian Empire's Podolia province (now in Ukraine). He was educated as a priest at the Kamianets-Podilskyi Theological Seminary and later continued his musical education at the Saint Petersburg Court Capella and with Boleslav Yavorsky in private lessons. Leontovych relocated to Kyiv following the 1917 revolution, where he worked at the Kyiv Conservatory and the Mykola Lysenko Institute of Music and Drama. He is best known for writing Shchedryk in 1904 (which premiered in 1916), also known as Carol of the Bells or Ring, Christmas Bells in the English-speaking world. In the Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian Church, he is remembered as a martyr, as well as for his liturgy, the first liturgy written in vernacular, specifically modern Ukrainian. In 1921, he was assassinated by a Soviet agent.

Leontovych's compositions and arrangements became popular with both professional and amateur groups across the Ukrainian region of the Russian Empire during his lifetime. In France, performances of his works in Western Europe and North America earned him the moniker "the Ukrainian Bach." Apart from his well-known Shchedryk, Leontovych's music is mostly heard in Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora.