In Loving Memory of Yakov Gubanov
With our hearts full of sorrow we announce that Yakov passed away at midnight on Friday, 21 March, in Vienna. He was diagnosed with a devastating cancer which took his life in three months.
Yakov lived and experienced everything through the lens of an Artist.
Let us all remember him in all of his beauty and depth of soul, and let us celebrate him through his own precious music and words.
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Enrica and Tanya,
loving wife and daughter.
Yakov Gubanov
Composer, Theorist, Teacher, Pianist
Yakov Gubanov was born in 1954 in Kiev, Ukraine. He studied at the Kiev and Moscow Conservatories (1970-76) and earned a Ph.D in Music Theory from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in 1983. His teaching career began while still a post-graduate student, and spans over the course of four decades as faculty and guest lecturer at reknowned music institutions in Europe and the USA. He composes for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and choir, as well as for film. He is author of numerous scholarly articles on contemporary music theory and of the book Theory of Music and Music of Theory (Planeta Muziki, 2021), which explores music theory as a synthesis of science and art. Since 2023 he resides in Vienna, where he is working on new compositions and scholarly research.
Composer
Major Orchestral Works:
6 Symphonies, 24 Etudes for Orchestra, Magnificat for Choir and Orchestra, Violin Concerto, Sonatas for Orchestra, Symphonic Poems and Overtures.
Symphony No3 and Movement for Piano, Percussion, and 40 Strings, are included in the collection dedicated to the History of National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, under the direction of Volodymir Sirenko. This same orchestra premiered his latest work, Symphonic Etudes, in Kiev in September 2024.
Chamber Compositions:
Sonatas for various instruments, Partita for 4 Trombones, Woodwind Quintet, Fantasy and Chaconne for Organ and Strings. His Nachtmusik for Oboe, Cello, and Piano, is published by Sikorski Musikverlage (Hamburg), recorded by pianOVo Trio and has been performed in Germany, Finland, and the USA.
His Trio for Violin, Viola, and Piano, was performed in Ukraine, Israel, and the USA, and recorded as part of the CD collections Masterpieces of Ukrainian Music and Selected Chamber Works from Berklee College of Music.
His Piano Sonata No2, was published in the collection Ukrainian Piano Sonatas and performed in Ukraine, Germany, Israel, Russia, and the USA.
Music for Film and Silents:
Documentary tribute to prominent Ukrainian actor, Dmytro Miliutenko: Recollections and Reflections (Spogady ta Rozdumy), Olena Mashkara, director, Ukrainian Documentary Film Studio.
Feature film Parisian Drama (Paryzka Drama), Mykola Mashchenko, director, National Ukrainian Film Studio.
Original music score for Violin and Piano to the Soviet silent film Jewish Luck, (Story by Sholom Aleichem, staring Solomon Mikhoels as Menahem-Mendl). This film was premiered at Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA, and was awarded the Nathaniel J. Jacobson prize.
As a composer-in-residence by Harvard University Film Archive: over 500 performances of live improvisation to masterpieces of the Silent Film Era.
For Choir a Capella:
Videntes Magi Stellam, a Christmas motet commissioned by Coro Polifonico di Rovigo, recorded on CD, performed extensively in Italy and premiered for American audiences by the King’s Chapel Choir in Boston. The Austrian premier of this motet was held by Grazer Universitätschor in 2023.
The madrigal, Benedicta et Venerabilis, commissioned by the Italian vocal quartet Cantica Symphonia, performed and broadcast on national radio in Italy and France; it was released on Glossa label CD Stella del Nostro Mar, and awarded Diapason d’Or prize.
Commissions by the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, for which Yakov was also composer-in-residence:
Psalmus XXVII (in Latin), Campane Pasquali (in Latin), Es ist Ein Ros (in German), Virgin, Rejoice! (in Church Slavonic), ...and Lead Them to Paradise, (in Church Slavonic), and The Garden of Roses (in Russian).
Theorist
Yakov Gubanov earned a Ph.D in Music Theory from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in 1983 with the dissertation Harmony in the Music of D. Shostakovich: Sonority and Functionality.
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He is the author of numerous publications in Ukrainian, Russian, German, and English on essential problems of contemporary music:
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Characteristic Features in Harmony of Dmitri Shostakovich (Kiev, 1979);
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Jazz as a Stylistic Component in the Music of Igor Stravinsky (Kiev, 1986);
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Cluster as a Harmonic Phenomenon (Kiev, 1987);
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Stylistic Synthesis in the Music of the 1980s (Kiev, 1988);
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Systematization of Contemporary Harmony (Kiev, 1992);
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Der Stil Dimitrij Schostakovitschs in den zwanziger Jahren: Harmonik, Polyphonie; Instrumentierung (Hildesheim, 1996);
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Word, Sound, and Soul (Moscow, 2021).
In 2021 he published the book Theory of Music and Music of Theory (Planeta Muziki, Saint Petersburg). which discloses music theory as a synthesis of science and art. ​​​
Between 1996 and 2006, Yakov collaborated extensively with the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University in the field of cross-cultural stylistics and the use of Ukrainian subjects in Western operas, as well as giving lectures on Ukrainian music and film. He has also given lectures at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York, on the topic of Gogol and music. He has participated in numerous international symposiums and conferences including:
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Internationals Symposium Musiktheorie (Leipzig, 1979);
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Music Composition: Analytical Aspect, (Kiev, 1984);
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German Pushkin Society Conference (Hamburg, 1995);
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American Association for the advancement of Slavic Studies (Boston, 1996);
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First International Congress of Women in World Music (Wellesley, MA, 1997);
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Shostakovich Centennial Conference (Boston, 2006);
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Poltava, 1709: Revisiting a Turning Point in European History (Harvard University, 2007);
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International Christmas Readings (Moscow, 2018/2019);
Teacher
Yakov began his teaching career at age 23 at the Kiev Conservatory, where he taught over the course of twenty years, designing his own courses in contemporary harmony, composition techniques, and stylistic analysis.
In the 1990s he traveled extensively around the world, giving lectures on the theoretical aspects of music language, form, and style. His lectures were hosted by universities and music academies in Israel (Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Bar-IIan), Italy (Conservatory of Venezia, University of Padova), in the USA (Harvard and Northeastern Universities, Wellesley, Middlebury, and Bowdoin Colleges).
His research and expertise in the music of Shostakovich brought him to Germany, as a Guest Professor in 1994-5, at the Franz Liszt Hochschule für Musik in Weimar, where he created two year-long courses:
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The Life and Work of D.Shostakovich, synthesizing historic, analytical, and psychological aspects, complemented by his personal interaction with the composer;
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The Evolution of Soviet and Post-Soviet Music, with a focus the different national idioms. ​
During his stay in Germany, he was invited to deliver guest lectures at the universities of Heidelberg, Hildesheim, Marburg, Potsdam, and Rostock.
In 2002 he joined the Composition Department of Berklee College of Music, Boston, where he was a Professor until 2014, creating four original courses:
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Evolution of Sonata Forms: from Scarlatti to Shostakovich;
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Fugal Writing (based on a full analysis of Books I & II of The Well-Tempered Clavier);
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20th Century Counterpoint: from Reger to Pärt;
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Program Music: Historic, Aesthetic and Stylistic Dimensions.
Throughout his years at Berklee, he also delivered his course on The Life and Work of D. Shostakovich, as well as the curriculum courses of Tonal Harmony, Tonal Counterpoint, and Directed Study in Composition. To date Yakov has taught over 5000 students, out of which about 300 have been in directed study of composition. In 2006 he was honored with the Ted Pease Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Pianist
Yakov began playing piano at the age of 5 with a private teacher and went on to continue his studies at the music school by the Kiev Conservatory. As a composition student at the Kiev, and later Moscow, conservatories he continued to develop his pianistic skills and formed his repertoire with piano concertos by Rachmaninov (No3), Shostakovich (No1), Prokofiev (No3), and Ravel (G major).
The dedication to the genre of piano concerto remained one of his focuses in later years, when he performed piano concertos by Stravinsky and Schnittke at the Column Hall of the Kiev Philarmonic.
In 1989 he played the piano part of his Movement for Piano, Percussion and 40 Strings, for the recording by the Ukrainian National Radio Studios.
He composed two piano sonatas and has performed them in Ukraine, Russia, USA, Germany, France, and Israel.
He played piano on the CD recording of his Trio for Violin, Viola, and Piano, and in its concert performances in Ukraine, Israel, and USA. During his Boston years, Yakov was a pianist in the ensemble of intuitive music Cultural Constructions Project, promoted by the Boston Creative Music Alliance.
Starting in 1994, he has established a reputation as an improviser for silent film by Harvard University Film Archive, where he was composer-in-residence. He gave over 500 performances of live improvisation to many masterpieces of the silent film era and participated in many world-renowned silent film festivals, such as:
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Weimarer Frühjahrstage für Zeitgenossische Musik (Germany);
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The Seattle International Film Festival (USA);
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Jewish-Ukrainian Film Festival (USA);
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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (Italy);
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Festival Musicale della Via Francigena Canavesana (Italy);
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Landscapes of the Soul Festival (Canada).
​He has also shared his experience in live improvisation in workshops in Germany, Italy, Ukraine, and USA.
In live ensemble with the Boston violinist Mimi Rabson, Yakov played the piano part to his original score for the silent film Jewish Luck, which was shown at Harvard University Film Archive, Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA, and Town Hall Theater in Middlebury, VT