Roman Turovsky
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Roman Turovsky-Savchuk (Ukrainian: Роман Туровський-Савчук) is an American artist-painter, photographer and videoinstallation artist, as well as a
lutenist A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can re ...
-composer,Suhayl Saadi Uncensored « Kitaab
Kitaabonline.wordpress.com. Retrieved on 18 October 2011.
born in Ukraine. His musical works were published under various
pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
s, including Johann Joachim Sautscheck.


Biography

Turovsky was born in
Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...
,
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
in 1961, when it was part of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. He studied art from an early age under his father, the painter Mikhail Turovsky and at the
Shevchenko State Art School , image = Shevchenko State Art School (1940).jpg , image_size = 250px , alt = , caption = Shevchenko State Art School at 2 Volodymyrska Street, Kyiv in 1940 , address ...
in Kyiv. He also began to be interested in music in his teens. The family emigrated to
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
in 1979. They first lived in the
Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
. Turovsky continued his art studies in New York at the Parsons School of Design, studying concurrently Historical Performance (Baroque Lute) and Composition, under Patrick O'Brien, Pier Luigi Cimma,
Leonid Hrabovsky Leonid Oleksandrovych Hrabovsky (also Hrabovsky or Hrabovs'ky, uk, Леонід Олександрович Грабо́вський; russian: Леони́д Алекса́ндрович Грабо́вский, ''Leonid Alexandrovitch Grabovsky ...
and Davide Zannoni. During the early 1990s, he worked at NYANA, a refugee resettlement agency in New York City (his co-workers there included people now prominent in the arts: theatre director
Alexander Gelman Alexander Gelman (born December 21, 1960), born: Aleksandr Simonovich Gelman (russian: Алекса́ндр Си́монович Ге́льман) is an American theater director and the current Producing Artistic Director of Organic Theater Comp ...
, writer and director
Todd Solondz Todd Solondz (; born October 15, 1959) is an American filmmaker and playwright known for his style of dark, socially conscious satire. Solondz's work has received critical acclaim for its commentary on the "dark underbelly of middle class America ...
, and writers
Alex Halberstadt Alex Halberstadt is an American nonfiction writer and journalist. He grew up in Moscow and in 1980 came to the United States, where he and his family settled in New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School, Oberlin College and Columbia Univers ...
and
Gary Shteyngart Gary Shteyngart (; born July 5, 1972) is a Soviet-born American writer. He is the author of five novels (including ''Absurdistan'' and '' Super Sad True Love Story'') and a memoir. Much of his work is satirical. Early life Born Igor Semyonovich ...
).


Art

Turovsky began composing in the early 1990s, simultaneously embarking on a career as a prolific artist-painter. He participated in many exhibitions. His first one-man show was held in June 2006 in New York, and the second in February 2013. Eight of his paintings are in the permanent collection of the International Marian Institute at the
University of Dayton The University of Dayton (UD) is a private, Catholic research university in Dayton, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, it is one of three Marianist universities in the nation and the second-largest private university in Ohio. The univ ...
.


Cinema and television

Turovsky worked as a scenic artist in the production of Jim Jarmusch's film " Ghost Dog", Paul Schrader's " First Reformed",
David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
's ''
Blackstar ''Blackstar'' is an American animated science fantasy television series, produced in 1981 by Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott for Filmation. The series was Filmation's second fantasy epic, the first being '' The Freedom Force'', a segment of '' ...
'' as well as in
Tom DiCillo Thomas A. DiCillo (born August 14, 1953) is an American film director, screenwriter and cinematographer. Early life He was born in Camp Le Jeune, North Carolina. His father was Italian and his mother was from New England. He studied creative wr ...
's " Double Whammy" and other films. He is a member of
United Scenic Artists United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829, formerly known as United Scenic Artists of America (USAA), is an American labor union. It is a nationwide autonomous Local of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. It organizes designe ...
.


Music

As a composer, Turovsky concentrated on the instrumental idiom of the Baroque lute and the
torban The torban ( ua, Торбан, also ''teorban'' or ''Ukrainian theorbo'') is a Ukrainian musical instrument that combines the features of the Baroque lute with those of the psaltery. The Тorban differs from the more common European bass lute ...
, as well as
viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...
and carillon. He composed over 1100 instrumental and vocal works influenced by his Ukrainian heritage and the baroque. Many of these were premiered by Luca Pianca at several international festivals (
Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Herit ...
, Lisbon, Schwetzingen,
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...
,
Vicenza Vicenza ( , ; ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the northern base of the ''Monte Berico'', where it straddles the Bacchiglione River. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan. Vicenza is a thr ...
,
Urbino Urbino ( ; ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of F ...
,
Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand ...
and Paris),
Roland Ferrandi Roland Ferrandi (; also Orlandu Ferrandi; born in 1958) is a Corsican composer- ceterist, lutenist and theorbist The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo ...
in Corte, Simon Paulus at
Wolfenbüttel Wolfenbüttel (; nds, Wulfenbüddel) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District. It is best known as the location of the internationally renowned Herzog August Library and for having the largest ...
and Jindřich Macek in Přibyslav, Kraty,
Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
and
Hvar Hvar (; Chakavian: ''Hvor'' or ''For'', el, Φάρος, Pharos, la, Pharia, it, Lesina) is a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea, located off the Dalmatian coast, lying between the islands of Brač, Vis and Korčula. Approximately long, wi ...
. He also collaborated with Paulo Galvão and Hans Kockelmans in a series of experimental works which they jointly composed. His works have been performed/recorded by Robert Barto, Robert MacKillop, Oleg Timofeyev, Massimo Marchese, John Schneiderman, Thomas Schall, Trond Bengtson, Terrell Stone,
Christopher Wilke Christopher Wilke (born 1973) is an American composer, lutenist, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher. Biography Born in Cincinnati, Wilke studied guitar and composition at the College of Mount St. Joseph, and took his master's degree in g ...
and Bernhard Hofstötter on lute, Angelo Barricelli and Fernando Lewis de Mattos on guitar, Ernst Stolz on
viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...
, as well as Hans Kockelmans and
Olesya Rostovskaya Olesya Rostovskaya ( rus, Олеся Ростовская; born 6 January 1975) is a Russian composer, theremin player, carillonneur, organist, and Russian zvon bell-ringer. Biography Olesya Rostovskaya studied piano at Anna Artobolevskaya cla ...
on carillon. In 2011 and 2013 Turovsky was profiled in two 1 hour-long programs on the Dutch Classical radio-station
Concertzender The Dutch public broadcasting system ( nl, Nederlands publieke omroepbestel) is a group of organizations that are responsible for public service television and radio broadcasting in the Netherlands. It is composed of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroe ...
. He also composed over 40
tombeau A tombeau (plural tombeaux) is a musical composition (earlier, in the early 16th century, a poem) commemorating the death of a notable individual. The term derives from the French word for "tomb" or "tombstone". The vast majority of tombeaux date ...
x dedicated to various cultural figures. These were described by Pablo del Pozo as being of "unquestionable musical quality". As a performer, Turovsky-Savchuk appeared as a lute soloist and continuo player in the Early Music line-up of
Julian Kytasty Julian Kytasty ( uk, Юліян Китастий) is an American composer, singer, kobzar, bandurist, flautist, and conductor of Ukrainian descent. He was born January 23, 1958, in Detroit, Michigan, in a family of refugees. Biography His firs ...
's " New York Bandura Ensemble" and "Radio Banduristan". Roman Turovsky was a recipient of the 2008 NYSCA grant for the purpose of study of
kobzar A ''kobzar'' ( ua, кобзар, pl. kobzari ua, кобзарі) was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment, played on a multistringed bandura or kobza. Tradition Kobzars were often blind and became predominantly so b ...
art with
Julian Kytasty Julian Kytasty ( uk, Юліян Китастий) is an American composer, singer, kobzar, bandurist, flautist, and conductor of Ukrainian descent. He was born January 23, 1958, in Detroit, Michigan, in a family of refugees. Biography His firs ...
. Roman Turovsky-Savchuk is a founding member of Vox Saeculorum and The
Delian Society The Delian Society was an international community of composers, performers, academics, independent scholars, recording engineers, music publishers, and amateurs dedicated to revitalizing and promoting tonality in contemporary art music. The socie ...
, two international groups devoted to the preservation and perpetuation of
tonal music Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is cal ...
. He was described as composer-extraordinaire by the British author
Suhayl Saadi Suhayl Saadi (born 1961, Beverley, Yorkshire) is a physician, author and dramatist based in Glasgow, Scotland. His varied literary output includes novels, short stories, anthologies of fiction, song lyrics, plays for stage and radio theatre, and wi ...
. In 2011 Turovsky-Savchuk contributed the soundtrack to the Iryna Korpan's documentary " She Paid The Ultimate Price", and in 2013 to the Marko Robert Stech's Georgy Narbut episode in the KontaktTV Toronto ( OMNI TV (Canada)) series "Eyes on Culture" No.55.


Discography

* Massimo Marchese - "Dialogues with Time" (daVinci Edition C00028, 2017) *
Christopher Wilke Christopher Wilke (born 1973) is an American composer, lutenist, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher. Biography Born in Cincinnati, Wilke studied guitar and composition at the College of Mount St. Joseph, and took his master's degree in g ...
"De Temporum Fine Postludia II" (Polyhymnion CD002, USA 2019) *
Christopher Wilke Christopher Wilke (born 1973) is an American composer, lutenist, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher. Biography Born in Cincinnati, Wilke studied guitar and composition at the College of Mount St. Joseph, and took his master's degree in g ...
"De Temporum Fine Postludia" (Polyhymnion CD001, USA 2016) * Daniel Shoskes "Weiss Undercover" (USA, 2016) * Daniel Shoskes "Lautenschmaus" CD (USA, 2011) * Angelo Barricelli "From Borderlands" (Lira Classica, Italy, 2008) * Thomas Schall "Die Laute im Barock" LCCD 0202 (The Lute Corner, Switzerland, 2002)


Allonyms and pseudonyms

Since 1996 Turovsky has signed his musical works as ''Sautscheck'', a German
transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...
of the second part of his surname as an
allonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
. Turovsky used a variety of constructions, such as Joachim Peter, Johann Joachim, and Konradin Aemilius, for first names attached to Sautscheck. He represented the works as newly discovered manuscripts by supposed 17th-, 18th- and 19th-century composers from several generations of the same family. His works for lute achieved wide circulation under the
allonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
of Sautscheck and the pseudonyms "Ioannes Leopolita" and "Jacobus Olevsiensis". Musicologist Douglas Alton Smith perceived these works as malicious hoaxes and forgeries because of their ostensibly baroque or earlier styles. The controversy in 2000 over what some considered an outright hoax led to coinage of a new German word, ''Sautscheckerei'', which denoted a musical or literary hoax. Turovsky published ''Mikrokosmos'', a collection of nearly 800
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
-style pieces based on Ukrainian folk melodies under the pseudonyms "Ioannes Leopolita" and "Jacobus Olevsiensis"..


Literary activities

Turovsky's poetry translations (from Russian, Ukrainian,
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
and other languages) have appeared in the literary almanacs
Cardinal Points The four cardinal directions, or cardinal points, are the four main compass directions: north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials N, E, S, and W respectively. Relative to north, the directions east, south, and west are at ...
, ''The Germ'', and various web publications. His translations of the early
futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...
works of
Mykola Bazhan Mykola Platonovych Bazhan (; – 23 November 1983) was a Soviet Ukrainian writer, poet, highly decorated political and public figure. He was an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1951), Merited Science Specialist o ...
are included in the 2020 edition of Bazhan's "Quiet Spiders Of The Hidden Soul". He also undertook research into the history of
Torban The torban ( ua, Торбан, also ''teorban'' or ''Ukrainian theorbo'') is a Ukrainian musical instrument that combines the features of the Baroque lute with those of the psaltery. The Тorban differs from the more common European bass lute ...
, a Ukrainian musical instrument of the lute family, and wrote the chapter on it for the 2011 edition of "Die Laute in Europa"."Die Laute in Europa 2" A.Schlegel & J.Lüdtke


References


External links

*''Early Music America'', 2007 (summer issue), p. 43

D. Dominick Lombardi interview for Huffington Post
"Roman Turovsky"
EAM interview, Polyhymnion

Delian Society Website

''Marian Meditations'', University of Dayton
Turovsky
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Turovsky-Savchuk, Roman 1961 births Living people Artists from Kyiv 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists Jewish American artists Jewish American classical composers Musicians from Kyiv Ukrainian Jews Jewish painters American video artists Composers for torban Composers for lute Composers for carillon Postminimalist composers American lutenists Kobzarstvo Torbanists Parsons School of Design alumni Pseudepigraphy Ukrainian SSR emigrants to the United States Ukrainian male painters Ukrainian classical composers Historicist composers Musical hoaxes Shevchenko State Art School alumni 21st-century American composers Male classical composers 20th-century American composers Jewish Ukrainian musicians 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians Vox Saeculorum 21st-century American Jews Composers from New York City Musicians from New York City 20th-century American male artists