Choir, and the musicologist Tetyana Husarchuk, continue to research and popularise his music. The task of studying Vedel is made more difficult for historians and musicologists because of the fragmentary and superficial nature of the sources—information about his methods is lacking, and his works cannot always be accurately dated. Life Family Artemy Lukyanovich Vedel was born in Kyiv in the Russian Empire, probably on 13 April 1767. He was the only son of Lukyan Vlasovych Vedelsky and his wife Elena or Olena Hryhorivna Vedelsky. The family lived in Podil, the old trading and crafts centre of Kyiv, in the parish of the . Their house stood on what is now the corner between and Andriivska Street; Artemy lived there throughout his childhood. Almost half of the population of Kyiv lived in Podil, which was one of the three walled settlements that formed the city, along with Old Kyiv and Pechersk. The Vedelsky family adhered strictly to the Orthodox faith. Lukyan Vlasovich Vedelsky was a wealthy carver of wooden iconostases, who owned his own workshop. The name Vedel, probably an abbreviated form of Vedelsky, was how the composer signed his letters, and named himself in military documents. His father signed himself "Kyiv citizen Lukyan Vedelsky". Early years in Kyiv Vedel was a boy chorister in the Eparchial (bishop's) choir in Kyiv. He studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, where his teachers included the Italian Giuseppe Sarti, who spent 18 years as an operatic composer in the Russian Empire. By the end of the 18th century, most of the students attending the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy were preparing for the priesthood. It was at that time the oldest and most influential higher education institution in the Russian Empire; most of the country's leading academics were originally graduates of the academy. Vedel attended the academy until 1787. After that he studied philosophy and music, and began composing as a student of Potemkin's Musical Academy. Whilst studying the advanced philosophy course, he was appointed as the conductor of the academy's choir—the academy provided extensive programmes for the training of choral singers—and conducted the student orchestra. He also performed as a solo violinist. He studied the academy's theoretical books on music, and became acquainted with the religious works (including cantatas) composed by the academy's students, as well as the spiritual concerts of , and perhaps also those of Sarti and Maxim Berezovsky. Moscow In 1788 Vedel, along with