Mark Kopytman

Mark Kopytman (December 6, 1929 – December 16, 2011) (Hebrew: מרק קופיטמן) was a composer, musicologist and pedagogue. He was a professor and a rector of the Rubin Academy (Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance), and a Laureate of the Serge Koussevitzky Prize for his composition Voices of Memory (1986). Awarded the title "People's Artist of Moldova" in (1992) by the Moldovan President for the creation of the first Moldovan National Opera «Casa mare» («The Great House»).

Kopytman was born in Kamianets-Podilskyi in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) in 1929. He received his initial training in piano and music theory at Chernivtsi Music College and later went on to study medicine at the Chernivtsi Medical Institute. After graduating from medical college, Kopytman studied composition with Roman Simovych at the Lysenko Academy of Music in Lviv and with S. Bogatirev at Tchaikovsky State Conservatory in Moscow. After gaining his second PhD in theory and composition, Kopytman taught at the conservatories of Moscow, Almaty and Chişinău. Several of his compositions won prizes and distinctions in competitions and festivals.

In 1972 Kopytman emigrated to Israel, where he became a Professor of Composition at the Rubin Academy. Kopytman eventually served as Chairman of the Theory and Composition Department, and later as Dean and the Deputy Head of the Academy (1974-1994).

In 1979, Kopytman was invited to teach as a permanent guest professor at Hebrew University. He has since led seminars and master classes in composition, especially in heterophony, the main focus of his creative work, at universities and music schools throughout Europe and the United States.

Kopytman's individual style is inspired by Jewish folklore and combined with economical use of recent innovations and characterized by a strong accent on melodic lines in the web of heterophonic splitting of textures.

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