Stankovych is regarded by many as the most important Ukrainian composer since Boris Lyatoshynsky. He was born on 19 September 1942 in Svaliava, in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, to a family of musically untrained schoolteachers. At the age of ten, he began studies on the bayan (a kind of chromatic accordion), and quickly developed an interest in composition. Several years later, he entered the music high school in Uzhgorod and began studying the cello. In 1961, Stankovych was admitted as a student of composition to the Lviv (Lvov) Conservatory; but his studies were interrupted by compulsory military service. He was finally able to continue in 1965, this time at the Kiev State Conservatory, where he worked with Lyatoshynsky, the man generally considered to be the father of contemporary Ukrainian music. Upon Lyatoshynsky’s death in 1968, Myroslav Skoryk (b. 1938) took over as his teacher.