Denys Sichynsky became the first musician in Galicia to dare to live solely by composition and conducting, with no other profession — a bold and self-sacrificing step in the poor land of that time. He organised choirs, music societies, the “Boyan” association, and educational concerts, tirelessly spreading professional musical culture.
His most famous work is the opera “Roksoliana,” on the story of a Ukrainian woman who became an influential sultana of the Ottoman Empire. Sichynsky also wrote cantatas, art songs to the words of Ivan Franko and Taras Shevchenko, and choruses that entered the golden fund of Western Ukrainian music. Despite poverty and an early death at 44, he paved the way for a whole generation of Galician composers — Liudkevych, Barvinsky, Kos-Anatolsky.
