Serhii Vilka

SERHII VILKA (born 1987) is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, and conductor. He is a Co-founder of Sed Contra Ensemble.
Serhii was born in Donetsk to a family of musicians. He graduated as a flutist and composer at the National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kyiv where he studied flute with Serhii Neugodnikov and composition with Yevhen Stankovych. Serhii also studied composition with Jerzy Kornowicz in Warsaw while the recipient of a Gaude Polonia Scholarship in 2019.

As a performer, Serhii played more than 200 world and Ukrainian premieres of many Ukrainian and foreign composers. Some of these works were composed especially for him. As a flutist, he took part at International Ensemble Modern Academy during the Klangspuren Schwaz Tirol festival in 2011 where he collaborated with composer George Benjamin and conductor Franck Ollu. In 2019 Serhii participated at European Workshop for Contemporary Music led by conductor Rüdiger Bohn during the 62nd edition of the Warsaw Autumn Festival.

In 2012 he was composer-in-residence at Druskininkai, Lithuania during International Composer-In-Residence Program. The solo piano piece “Meditation on the joHn CAGE’s name,” which was composed during the residence, was chosen as an obligatory piece for Pianists’ Concours at the National Music Academy of Ukraine in 2016. In 2021, at the request of Kyiv Flute Days, Serhii composed “Escape” for five flutes and piano, which was performed at the closing of the festival. Also in 2021, the organ piece “Conditions / Fractions” was commissioned by the Lviv Organ Hall.

From 2020 to 2022, Serhii held the position of Principal Conductor of Zhytomyr Academic Music and Drama Theatre. Serhii has taken part in masterclasses and workshops with Pierre-Yves Artaud, Johannes Schöllhorn, Jerzy Kornowicz, Chaya Czernowin, Zygmunt Krauze, Toshio Hosokawa, Justė Janulytė, Eden Ladin as classical / jazz performer and composer. His music has been performed in Ukraine, the USA, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Moldova, and Armenia.