Valerii Hrunskyi: Carl Orff Competition 2020 Behind A Grove, Grove

Valerii Hrunskyi Valery Grunsky (Valerii Hrunskyi)
Since early childhood I was interested in music. I got my first musical impressions thanks to my parents. My father George Grunsky and my mother Anna Grunska loved to sing Ukrainian songs at home during our everyday activities. Being a little child I used to listen to their songs and tried to repeat the melodies playing the piano, which we had in the kindergarten. Also I liked to improvise my own melodies in the low and middle registers.
At the age of 7, I started learning to play the accordion at a local music school (graduated in 1970). There I also studied elementary music theory and played folk instruments in the orchestra.

Since 1975 till 1981, I studied polyphony, orchestration and composition and other musical disciplines at Kharkiv I.P. Kotlyarevsky National University of Arts. There I had a chance to participate in a composition conference, where my Piano Suite was performed for the first time on a professional level.
In 1981 - 1994, I worked as a teacher of music theory, solfeggio and accordion in music schools in Sloviansk, Mykolaivka, etc. During this period, I was volunteering as a music arranger for local musical ensembles, as well as arranging folk songs and music for school plays, etc.
Since 2005, I have been working with the Kyiv Quartet of Saxophonists of the National Philharmonic of Ukraine under the direction of Yurii Vasylevich. Works written for the quartet were performed in different countries.
In 2009-2016, I worked as a singer of the Patriarchal Choir in Volodymyr Cathedral in Kyiv. Since 2016 till February 24, 2022, I sang in a choir of St. Andrew's Cathedral in Bucha. Knowing the choir allows me to improve my composing skills and write new works. Before moscow’s invasion of Ukraine I lived in Irpin with my wife. Fleeing the horrors of war we managed to get out of occupied Irpin and go to Poland, then to Croatia, where I am at the moment.