Maksym Sozontovych Berezovskyi (October 16 (27), 1745, Glukhiv - March 22 (April 2), 1777, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, singer. The author of spiritual concerts and the opera "Demophont", as well as the first Ukrainian symphony. A classic of European music.

He was born in Hlukhiv in the Sumy Oblast in a Cossack family, in the city where musicians were trained to work at the court of Russian emperors (see Glukhiv singing school). He received his higher education at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, where he began to write his own works.

In 1758, due to his exceptional vocal abilities, he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he became a soloist in Prince Peter Fedorovich's Court Singing Chapel. There he got acquainted with the European music of that time.

In 1759–1760, he performed as a singer-soloist in the Italian Opera Company in Oranienbaum and St. Petersburg.

In 1769, he was sent to Italy to study at the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, where he took lessons from the famous composer and music historian Padre Giovanni Battista Martini, with whom he studied for about eight years. In order to have the right to be a Kapellmeister, he passed the exam on May 15, 1771 for the title of Academician of the Philharmonic in Bologna, together with a Czech composer named Josef Myslivecek. Graduated from the Academy with honors. In the same years, the young Mozart studied at the Bologna Academy.

In 1771, Berezovsky received the title of maestro di musica and was elected a member of the Bologna Philharmonic Society. Until 1773, the only finished opera belonging to M. Berezovsky - "Demophont" - was staged in Livorno in 1773 during the carnival holidays. At the beginning of 1774, together with a squadron of Russian ships under the leadership of Alexei Orlov, he returned to St. Petersburg.

Returning to the Russian Empire in 1774, M. Berezovsky faced the indifference of government officials. He was promised the position of director of the Kremenchug Academy of Music, but this project was not destined to be realized. Maksym Berezovskyi was enrolled (without a position) as a church organist and bandmaster of the Court Singing Chapel.

Constant shortages, the impossibility of finding an application for his creative powers led the composer to illness. In 1777, the 31-year-old composer died. Subsequently, a version about suicide spread, which is questioned by modern biographers of the composer, in particular, Berezovsky's biographer M. Rytsareva. The death of the composer, in her opinion, was the result of an infectious disease, and the rumor about Berezovsky's suicide began to spread in the literature starting from 1810 with the submission of Metropolitan Yevgeny (Bolkhovitinov).

An equally tragic fate befell his works, which either fell to dust or were destroyed altogether. Most of Berezovsky's works existed only in manuscripts. Only single compositions were published, which, in fact, brought him world fame.