VITALIY HODZIATSKY was born on December 29, 1936 to a family of professional musicians. His father, Oleksii Hodziatsky (Snizhynsky), graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory as a choir conductor and vocalist, worked as a choir conductor in amateur and professional groups, and was a regent in Kyiv churches, in particular, St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral. In addition to his choir work, he also reworked and arranged folk songs, and composed several spiritual works. Vitalii’s mother, Taisia Hryhorivna, taught singing at school.

Vitaliy received his first music lessons from his mother at home. The young man's “musical university” that followed was self-education and, starting from the age of 17, private lessons with Roman Hindin, Yakiv Fastovsky (piano), and Nadia Horiukhina (theoretical disciplines). After failing to get accepted at the philology department of Kyiv University, Hodziatsky became a student of Borys Liatoshynsky’s composition class at the Kyiv Conservatory in 1956.

After graduating from the Conservatory in 1961, he taught for two years at the Vinnytsia Music College, where he organized the Stravinsky Club for both students and teachers to listen to and discuss recordings of modern Western music. Upon his return to the capital, he worked as a teacher in Kyiv music studios and schools (1963–1974, and from 1982 to the present day), as a curriculum devleoper at the Republic House of Amateur Arts (1974), and head of the musical ensemble at the Dovzhenko cinema (1975–1982).

In 1969, eight years after graduating from the Conservatory, Hodziatsky joined the Union of Composers, which provided opportunities for official professional activities (he could perform his works in concerts, he received commisions to compose music for films and theater performances, and he could make records and publish sheet music of his works). However, after a  year and a half he was expelled from the Union (along with Valentyn Sylvestrov) and reinstated only in 1974, after the intervention of Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian, and Gara Garayev.

Vitaliy Hodziatsky is an Honored Artist of Ukraine and a Laureate of the Borys Liatoshynsky Prize.

(Yuriy Chekan)