Virko Baley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Virko Baley (1938-) is a renowned Ukrainian-American composer, conductor, and pianist. He was born in Radehkiv, Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (in what is now the country of Ukraine)on October 21, 1938, the only child of Petro (Peter) and Lydia Baley. Before he had celebrated his first birthday, Hitler's army had invaded Poland and World War II had begun. The war defined Baley's early years, and gave him a very different view of life and the world than children born in the United States during those same years. His father was interred at the concentration camp in Auschwitz following the German invasion. Baley, his mother, uncles, aunts and grandmother were relocated to Slovakia. The family was reunited on a farm in Germany near the end of the war to work as farm laborers, after which they relocated to Munich. From 1947 to 1949, the Baleys lived in a Displaced Persons camp in Regensburg, Germany.