Oleksandr Chornyi

Oleksandr Chornyi is a composer, pianist, music curator and producer. He was born in 1993 in Kyiv, Ukraine. He studied at the Reinhold Glière Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music (BA, piano), the National Music Academy of Ukraine (MA, composition), and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin (BA, composition). Currently, he is a graduate student at the Department of Music Theory of the National Music Academy of Ukraine. Member of the Association of Electroacoustic Music of Ukraine (2023) and the National Union of Composers of Ukraine (2024).

Chornyi works in the field of acoustic and electroacoustic music. Oleksandr's work includes the chamber opera Tolleranzia for three soloists and an ensemble (staged at the Tischlerei stage of the Deutsche Oper, directed by Kundry Rymon, conducted by Etienne Haan, 2019), Concerto for viola with orchestra (premiered in the Great Hall of the National Music Academy of Ukraine by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, conducted by Viktor Ploskin, soloist Oleksandr Sviet, 2023), and a number of chamber works for ensembles and solo instruments.

Oleksandr participated in masterclasses by Johannes Schöllhorn, Stefano Gervasoni, Beat Furrer, Helmut Lachenmann, and others. His music was performed at festivals such as Kyiv Music Fest, Contrasts (Lviv), Two Days and Two Nights of New Music (Odesa), Mehrlicht!Musik (Berlin), Forum Neue Musik (Mannheim), Crescendo Festival (Berlin), Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival (New York), and others.

Oleksandr Chornyi creates music for motion pictures, his works include dozens of TV series and full-length films, including The Witch. Revenge (dir. Andriy Kolesnyk, 2024), A Sentimental Journey to the Parajanov Planet (dir. Taras Tomenko, 2024), Dovbush (together with Alla Zagaykevych, dir. Oles Sanin, 2023), Follow Me (dir. Lyubomyr Levytsky, 2023), Kava z Kardamonom (dir. Iryna Gromozda, 2022), Egregor (dir. Stanislav Kapralov, 2021), and others.

Oleksandr also creates music for multimedia shows and advertising campaigns, including for Gulliver shopping mall (Kyiv), Saudi Vision 2030, Come Back Alive, Reface, America Got Talent, BMW, Bentley, and others.

Since 2022, Oleksandr has been the head of the Octopus Student Scientific And Creative Society of the National Music Academy of Ukraine. During this time, the team has organized a number of large-scale events: Theodore Kuchar’s masterclass for young conductors (together with the Lviv National Philharmonic and the Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, 2023 and 2024); contemporary music conducting workshop with Etienne Haan (together with the National Presidential Orchestra and the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, 2023); the “Fresh Science” International Youth Musicological Conference (2023); discussions, meetings with artists, etc.

Oleksandr Chornyi is the co-founder and head of the independent initiative CMM Youth Music Center. Its tasks are to create opportunities for the development of young performers of new music and to present contemporary classical music in the cultural space of Ukraine. CMM’s projects include the Practicum for new music performers (October 2023 and May 2024); “Liminal Spaces” (May 2023) and “Transhumanism” (December 2023) composer projects.

Oleksandr Chornyi is the curator of Ensemble 24, a contemporary music ensemble.

Awards

2023 — Gold medal of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine for the Dovbush original motion picture soundtrack (together with Alla Zagaykevych)
2023 — Best Original Music, Best Sound for Warpath Showdown II: Centenary, 24fps International Short Film Festival, USA
2019, 2022 — Effie Awards for music for interdisciplinary shows
2017 — Scholarship of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
2004, 2008, 2011 — Laureate of the International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz