Dmitry Bortniansky was born on 28 October 1751 in the city of Hlukhiv (present-day Ukraine), then a part of the autonomous Cossack Hetmanate within the Russian Empire (as Glukhov), into the family of Stefan Skurat (or Shkurat), a Lemko-Rusyn Orthodox religious refugee from the village of Bortne in the Malopolska region (he was entered in the Cossack register of Glukhov in 1755)[5]. At the age of seven, Dmitry's prodigious talent at the local church choir afforded him the opportunity to go the capital of the empire and sing with the Imperial Chapel Choir in St. Petersburg. There he studied music and composition under the director of the Imperial Chapel Choir, the Italian master Baldassare Galuppi. When Galuppi left for Italy in 1769, he took the boy with him. In Italy, Bortniansky gained considerable success composing operas: Creonte (1776) and Alcide (1778) in Venice, and Quinto Fabio (1779) at Modena. He also composed sacred works in Latin and German, both a cappella and with orchestral accompaniment (including an Ave Maria for two voices and orchestra).