Viktor Stepanovich Kosenko

Viktor Stepanovich Kosenko was born in Saint Petersburg in November 1896 and died in Kiev in October 1938. He trained as a composer and pianist at the conservatory in his native city, graduating in 1918 with Nikolai Sokolov in composition and Irina Miklashevskaya in piano.

Between 1918 and 1928 he lived in Zhytomyr, where he taught at the music school. In 1929 he moved to Kiev, where he taught at the Lysenko Institute of Music (1929-1934) and at the conservatory (1934-1938), heading the piano, chamber music and analysis departments. In 1938 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.

His music, Romantic in character, follows the Russian tradition of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Scriabin. His works include a Violin Concerto (1919), the Heroic Overture (1932), the symphonic poem Moldavskaya poema (1937), a Piano Concerto (1937) and almost a hundred pieces for piano, among them eleven Ėtyudy in the form of old dances and twenty-four Children's Pieces.

Kosenko's legacy endures in the music schools of Zhytomyr and Kiev that he helped to found, as well as in a scholarship for the most gifted students. The house he lived in in Kiev is today a memorial museum.