Mykhailo Kolachevskyi was born in 1851 in the village of Fedorivka in Mykolaiv Oblast (now Mykolaiv Oblast). He spent his childhood surrounded by folk music.

He received a professional musical education at the Leipzig Conservatory, which he graduated in 1876. The young man studied a few years later with Mykola Lysenko and with the same teachers.

Returning to the Motherland, Kolacevskyi settled in Kremenchuk, where he tried to use his knowledge and skills for the needs of society. Since 1890, for a decade, he has been in charge of the administration of the Kremenchug Zemstvo.

In the village of Rokytny, there was his estate and a park of trees that he brought from different countries of the world. M. M. Kolachevskyi, a public figure and composer, lived almost his entire life in this village and wrote most of his works.

The grave of Mykhailo Kolachevsky in the village of Rokytne

Mykhailo Kolacevskyi died in 1907. He was buried on his own estate.

The part of the creative heritage of M. Kolachevsky that has reached us is small - it is a string quartet, a piano trio, romances, piano works, "Requiem", etc. 19 romances, 4 piano pieces and the score of the "Ukrainian Symphony" have also been preserved.

The most important work of Kolachevsky is his symphony. Written as the composer's thesis in 1876, it was performed at the final examination and in a public concert, the program of which consisted of works by graduates of the conservatory. In Ukraine, Kolacevsky's symphony was repeatedly performed by the orchestra under the direction of D. Akhsharumov in Poltava, and then in Kharkiv and Kremenchuk. In Soviet times, this work firmly entered the repertoire of orchestras. It is played on the radio, it is recorded on a gramophone record; the score is also published.

"Ukrainian Symphony"

About the (albeit insignificant) development of the symphonic genre in Ukraine in the 18th-19th centuries. the first symphonies of the end of the 18th century testify: "Ukrainian Symphony" by E. Vanzhura, symphonies by Maxim Berezovsky, Concert Symphony by D. Bortnyanskyi. Ivan Lozynskyi and Mykhailo Verbytskyi wrote their symphonies in the 19th century. In 1869, Mykola Lysenko wrote his First Youth Symphony. A few years later, the work of M. Kolachevsky appeared. There is no doubt that the composer was already familiar with Lysenko's work. Many Lysenko romances based on T. Shevchenko's poems have already been written. Perhaps Kalachevsky knew his "Ukrainian suite in the form of ancient dances based on folk songs" for the piano and the symphony, because they studied composition with the same teacher Karl Reineke.

It should be noted that in selecting musical themes and principles of their development, Kolacevsky followed Mykola Lysenko and Russian classical composers. And at the heart of all the themes of the "Ukrainian Symphony" are the melodies of folk songs. It is characteristic that the composer preserves the genre features of the song, seeks to more fully reveal its figurative content through the means of the orchestra, through a large musical form. Undoubtedly, Kalachevsky was also influenced by Western European music, in particular the First symphonies of the German romantic composers F. Mendelssohn and R. Schumann.