Serhii Vilka

Serhii Vilka (born 1987) is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, and conductor. He is a co-founder of Sed Contra Ensemble.

Serhii was born in Donetsk in a musicians’ family. He graduated as a flutist and composer from the National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kyiv where he studied flute with Serhii Neugodnikov and composition with Professor Yevhen Stankovych. Serhii also studied composition with Jerzy Kornowicz in Warsaw during Gaude Polonia Scholarship in 2019.

As a performer, Serhii Vilka played more than 200 world and Ukrainian premieres of pieces by Ukrainian and international composers. Some of these works were composed especially for him. As a flutist, he took part in the International Ensemble Modern Academy during the Klangspuren Schwaz Tirol festival in 2011 where he collaborated with composer George Benjamin and conductor Franck Ollu. In 2019 Serhii participated in European Workshop for Contemporary Music led by conductor Rüdiger Bohn during the 62nd edition of the Warsaw Autumn Festival.

In 2012 Vilka was composer-in-residence at Druskininkai, Lithuania during International Composer-In-Residence Program. The solo piano piece Meditation on the joHn CAGE’s name which was composed during the residency was chosen as an obligatory piece for the Pianists’ Competition at the National Music Academy of Ukraine in 2016. In 2021, at the request of Kyiv Flute Days, Serhii composed Escape for five flutes and piano, which was performed at the closing of the festival. Also in 2021, he created the organ piece Conditions / Fractions by the commission of the Lviv Organ Hall.

During 2020-2022 Serhii Vilka held the position of Principal Conductor of Zhytomyr Academic Music and Drama Theater.

Serhii Vilka took part in masterclasses and workshops with Pierre-Yves Artaud, Johannes Schoellhorn, Jerzy Kornowicz, Chaya Czernowin, Zygmunt Krauze, Toshio Hosokawa, Justė Janulytė, Eden Ladin as classical / jazz performer and composer.

The music of Serhii Vilka has been performed in Ukraine, the USA, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Moldova, and Armenia.