Artist: Tanya Balakyrska
Album : Lviv Sessions
Released Date : September, 2011
Label : Fonia Records

Music can be used as a media for expressing our minds, thoughts, feelings or emotions perfectly like another kinds of arts. The artists can pour themselves out through the melodies, rhythms, lyrics or the combinations among those elements. We have met some brilliant artists who have gone much further by exploring more of the artistic side of music. They can make their music appear as beautiful as a painting, deeply attached by emotions like a poem or even both altogether while also sharing what’s in their mind at the same time. Speaking of which, here’s a beautiful artist life all the way up in Russia that has the ability to create her style full of feelings and presenting it as beautiful as a painting. She’s Tanya Balakyrska, who’s just launched her debut album entitled “Lviv Sessions”.

Tetyana Balakyrska, better known as Tanya Balakyrska is a vocalist and composer originally from Ukraine but currently resides in Dubna, approximately 125 km north of Moscow. One of the unique things about her is that she’s also a highly acclaimed and well known jazz journalist in Russia and Ukraine with quite a reputation. She acts as the deputy chief editor of Jazz.ru, the famous web portal of jazz which has been in business for more than 14 years that now has also become the one and only paper jazz magazine in Russia with the same name and also worked as a contributor for Zvuki.ru, the biggest music webzine in Russia. From our point of view, being a music journalist would already take a lot of time and hard works, but somehow Tanya could still share her time to be an active jazz singer and songwriter, not to mention being a wonderful wife as well. Tanya’s big love and passion towards jazz has placed her tall and strong in both sides. She has been a successful jazz journalist for some years, and by looking at her passion and talent, we don’t find any reason why she can’t be a successful jazz artist as well.

Step aside from her career as a journalist, she has been riding her music career in some projects, including with the Russian neo-classicist cello trio Fan(c), hard jazz fusion trio from Yekaterinburg Free-Spoken Band and also with her minimalist band with Denis Shushkov (contrabass) and Nikolay Kulikov (guitar). With these lineups Tanya has toured in Russia, Ukraine and Poland. Just in the previous two years she has performed at 6 international festivals, including open airs, a philarmonic hall and numerous clubs. One of the unforgettable moment for her was when she gave an impressive solo concert at the Urals State Music Theatre, one of the best venues in Russia. Looking at this fast-fruitful progress, naturally Tanya came to a point thinking that she has to continue her project and establish her existance in the shape of album. Normally it would be easier to bring the bands she has worked with before, but due to some circumstances, she couldn’t do that.

Now let’s continue to see what based her decision to make the recording  in Lviv. Tanya grew up in the Eastern, industrial part of Ukraine. As a native Ukraine, she’s being fascinated by Lviv, a city located at the Western Ukraine. She had performed there for several times before, and she made friends with some local musicians during the gigs. Lviv is regarded as one of the main historical and cultural centres of Ukraine. The inspiring beauty of this historic old city founded in 1256 by King Danylo Halytskyi and named after his son, Lev. The richness of arts and cultures and the open mindness of its people brought her into a decision to record her album there and named it as Lviv Sessions. To make it even better in capturing the beauty of Lviv, Tanya used Oleh Ghyzhy‘s painting ‘Shevchenko avenue’ as the cover of the album. Just by looking at the cover, you will get the first impression that the CD will be riched by arts. The same approach has been used by Bulgarian-born guitarist Hristo Vitchev in his albums as well.

Since the recording process was made in Lviv, she chose to work with some local musicians who has the connection with this city. She brought in a fine set of musicians who can really help her in presenting her concept. On the drum is Ihor Hnydyn, a Kennedy Center Jazz Fellowship holder and the Lviv Jazz Club art director. Alex Maksymiw on guitar came from Toronto and actually works in Amsterdam, but recently has been living in Lviv. Taking the keyboard position is Yuri Seredyn who has just graduated from Lviv Music Academy and last but not least, Dmitry Bondarev on trumpet. While the previous three musicians are related to Lviv, Dmitry isn’t so. He is Ukrainian, but at the moment when the recording were made,he was studying in Poland, which is not far away from Lviv. But the technology made his contribution still possible. He sent Tanya his trumpet part by e-mail. He’s said to be one of the brightest trumpet players in Ukraine today.

What Tanya brings in her debut album is everything we all have been experiencing in life. The miracle of birth and death, the relationship where love and hurt could both exist, the ways of happiness, the essence of life, the nearness to God and other life stuffs. These might be not new topics to be found in songs, but when you listen to the album, you will get the clue that Tanya actually looks from different angles and perspectives. And what’s important is, she chose to speak out her feelings honestly. Her vocal has a strong character that breathes life into the songs and gets even better to hear especially when the theme is deep and dark. Based on her previous projects, the independency and freedom can be felt throughout the album. Tanya brought the concept in minimalist in between, jazz and pop, with splashes of folk, with enough room for her band to make themselves heard. It seems that she’s a deep thinker and really sensitive in looking at the life’s perspective. She wrote the lyrics in poetic way, so it appears like she’s singing poems, just like the way The Doors’ Jim Morrison did, and Finland-born Germany-based Kristiina Tuomi and her trio does in the present time, and of course Sienna Dahlen who also contributed in the album. As the lyrics have deep meaning and poetic, each song will capture the listeners to go into soul-searching, to have a look into life and everything inside. “I could only hope people would take my music into their hearts,” said Tanya, and she has definitely reached that point.

While Tanya brilliantly did the compositions, she shared rooms with two other writers in the lyrics. She included her friend, a Canadian musician and poet Sienna Dahlen. “In my opinion, Sienna Dahlen is one of the most gifted singers-songwriters in the global scale. She’s very talented both as a composer, a poet and a vocalist.” she said. They met each other first time at 2010 MuzEnergo Festival in Dubna, Russia. They instantly connected and shared respects to each other. Not only did she motivate Tanya to write her own, but also offered to participate in writing the lyrics. “Of course, I consented.” said Tanya. They wrote about 5 songs together, where 2 of them can now be found in the Lviv Sessions album. “I’m very thankful to Sienna, really, and I’m flattered at having her as a co-writer.” Tanya continued. Another name that should be mentioned is Edward Estlin Cummings, popularly known as E.E Cummings (1894-1962), a famous American poet, painter, author, playwright (dramatist) and essayist. Together the authors and bands created a solid, heartfelt album. An album that represent a reflection of life, a recollection of life or even in some ways, a celebration of life. Beautiful, poetic, meaningful and artistic might be the simplest way to describe this album.

From Tanya we got more details in the making process of the album. This album mostly was recorded live, with only vocals, trumpet and backing vocals were added in overdubs. By doing this, she wanted the songs to be able to breathe life into the listeners. “there are some true, natural alive and real musical moments on it, which make it worth being, listening and having.” said Tanya. We can’t be more agreed with it. We can capture the honesty and passion right from the very first track, being delivered nice and simple but contains a lot of meaningful thoughts presented beautifully poetic. As what Tanya and the band did, the purity of music really helps in building up the concept into perfection.

Lviv Sessions has 8 tracks inside. The album starts with “New Horizon”, written by Tanya herself. Right from this first song you will get her distinctive concept. The intensity rises when Dmitry Bondarev roared emotionally with his trumpet together with Ihor Hnydyn’s drumplay. You’ll find yourself amazed by listening to her fully controlled vocal that brings more emotional depth into it. From there Tanya invites us to listen one of E.E Cummings’ famous poem “Once Like a Spark” that tells a story when two strangers met and stayed together throughout their lives. There’s potential for anything to happen, but it would give impact to both forever in the way they will always remember it. In a way, poem works in the same way. The poem itself will spark interests and then ends, yet the meanings will touch the readers forever. Tanya brought a perfect approach in composing the music, so not only the lyrics are poetic, but the music works like a poem too.

“Auburn-Haired Maiden” was written by Sienna Dahlen. Tanya used to present this song with the cello trio Fan(c) like they did in MuzEnergo International Festival 2010. The vintage sound created nicely by keyboardist Yuri Seredyn, while guitarist Alexander Maksymiw was kept busy most of the time in this one. Then we got “Molly”, a song written by Tanya herself based on a generalized character of a newborn baby. This song was made sparkling with magical nuance, full of love and appreciation. This song can be the one to listen to if you want to see how good she can control her voice. Tanya played the keyboard by herself too in this special song. Another Sienna Dahlen’s writing comes next, “Tiny Bombs”. This song is a reminder of how important it is to keep our tongue from pouring careless words loosely that might hurt anyone like being hit with a tiny bombs. Tanya roars to bring the scary destructive atmosphere that could be created by it.

“Nothing’s Easier” is again a song written by Tanya reminding us to keep choosing the way of love and faith in facing all the strugles in our daily life. She brings the song with beautiful simple piano tunes to bring this subject, in a way to enable us in focusing on the message. If you remember a song from Irene Cara, “Out Here On My Own” which appeared in Fame OST (1980), this song appears in the same beauty as that. Two last songs are taken from E.E Cummings’ collection. “Thank You God” reflects the worship and appreciation to God for His blessings upon us. Being the most upbeat song in the album, this one is uplifting and inspirational. We sometimes forget to cling to God in our busy times. Through this song Tanya reminds us to give thanks to God for everything He’s given to us. The last song in this album is “Hello to the Spring”. Originally titled by Cummings as “What If a Much of a Which of a Wind”, Tanya changed the title to bring odes to spring, which was also originally included in the poem. As the closing track, this song served enchantingly with only guitar and light percussive sounds. Simple yet ellegant.

It’s not everyday we bump in with an album from far, far away, but lucky for us, we got the chance to listen and write something about the beautiful work of Tanya Balakyrska. Lviv Sessions is a heartfelt album that presents a recollection of life with all the essences and reflections. This is a serious album contained many deep thoughts from different perspectives without necessarily losing its grip on the entertaining side. Packed artistically poetic, with this debut album Tanya invites her listeners to enter her heart and listen to what her soul wants to say. If you want to see how jazz can appear poetically, how far an artist could go exploring their minds in the world of independent music, or simply of you want to listen to a very gifted lady who opens up a new territory to be an artist after being a successful reputable journalist, Tanya Balakyrska’s Lviv Sessions is your choice. The fact that all songs were written in English would help us better in understanding the messages she wanted to share. An attractive, charming, ellegant and exquisite album to have indeed.

Musicians:
Tanya Balakyrska – vocals, music, lyrics
Lhor Hyndyn – drums
Alexander Maksymiw – guitar
Yuri Seredyn – keyboards
feat. Dmitry Bondarev – trumpet

Tracklist:
New Horizon
Once Like a Spark
Auburn-Haired Maiden
Molly
Tiny Bombs
Nothing’s Easier
Thank You God
Hello to the Spring

For further information and ordering, please contact +7 916 511 37 41 or email producer@muzenergo.ru

Visit Tanya Balakyrska’s official website and facebook

Reviewed by: Riandy Kurniawan
Proofreader: Alhenri Wijaya

Photos provided by Tanya Balakyrska, used by permission.

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