Roman Hurko

Roman Hurko is a New York based composer who specializes in Byzantine Rite Music.

Roman Hurko is an American-Canadian of Ukrainian descent, born in Toronto, Canada (1962). A graduate of The Yale Institute of Sacred Music (Master of Arts and Religion) and The University of Toronto (B.A. Music History and Theory), he has also studied composition privately with composer Father Ivan Moody in Portugal.

He has been a member of the Composers' Union of Ukraine since 2004.

Hurko began composing music while still in high school. His first composition "Ave Maria" for SATB choir was premiered by the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir, at the Guelph Spring Festival in 1983, with the composer conducting.

In the summers of 1983 and 1985 he attended choral conducting seminars led by Wolodymyr Kolesnyk, former director of the National Opera of Ukraine. In the fall of 1985, he co-founded the St. Evtymyj Youth Choir at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church in Toronto. Hurko soon began setting sections of the liturgy for the choir, and in 1999 completed and recorded the entire Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in commemoration of the second millennium of Christianity.

Along with composition, Hurko has a career in Opera Stage Direction. A former member of the Canadian Opera Company (COC) ensemble, he worked as staff assistant director at the COC from 1988-93. After freelancing as an assistant director in Europe and the US (Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, Salzburg Festival, De Nederlandse Opera, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Teatro de la Zarzuela, The Washington Opera) he made his stage directing debut in 1996 at the Spoleto Festival (Italy) with Handel's Semele. In Spoleto, he co-directed Prokofiev's War and Peace together with festival founder and composer, Gian Carlo Menotti. Most recently, he directed Mozart's Don Giovanni and Wagner's The Flying Dutchman at the Vancouver Opera.

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