Invasion: an interview with pianist Nadia Shpachenko
Most of the world was horrified when Russia invaded Ukraine. But our reactions were nothing compared to what Ukrainian-American pianist Nadia Shpachenko felt as she watched helplessly from the United States as bombs fell on her homeland—including family and friends living in Kharkiv. Prayers and hopes were not enough. Shpachenko channeled her anger, grief, and fear into actions benefitting Ukrainians affected by the war, and she did so using the language of music, performing fundraising concerts and working non-stop to release this recording, Invasion: Music and Art for Ukraine.
Featuring the music of Pulitzer prize winning composer Lewis Spratlan, artwork Shapachenko commissioned from Ukrainian artists, and with the generous cooperation of Reference Recordings, all the proceeds from Invasion go to benefit Ukrainians affected by the war. From the title track, “Invasion,” to piano rags, suites, and sonatas, Spratlan’s music and Shpackeno’s sensitive playing lays bare the horror of war, yet never ignores glimmers of optimism. It is music that both highlights and transcends the Russian invasion, always pointing toward a brighter future. As Shapachenko states, “Hope is what we need to never lose, especially in seemingly impossible and unresolvable situations.” I’m deeply honored to feature Nadia Shpachenko, this cause, and this beautiful album on No Dead Guys.
As an American-Ukrainian pianist, you moved to the United States when you were just a teenager. What brought you here, as opposed to many other countries where you could also find excellent musical instruction?
I received an invitation and a full scholarship to study piano with Victor Rosenbaum at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge in 1994. I have performed for Rosenbaum in master classes several times and was excited to take advantage of the opportunity to study with him and to explore the musical scene and opportunities in the US.
What did you find most difficult about studying with American instructors and creating a life in a new country?
Creating a new life in a new country is never easy, but I have an adventurous spirit and I love to travel, to learn about other cultures, and to learn languages. I spoke English well before moving to the United States, so that helped. I also loved the opportunity to meet and collaborate with people from different musical and cultural backgrounds. The hardest thing was getting by while having absolutely no money. While I had a full scholarship, I needed to work to cover my living expenses. But I managed to do this, even while at school, by working as a musician—teaching, performing, and collaborating. I was very fortunate this way. I was also fortunate to study with two outstanding teachers, at first with Victor Rosenbaum in Cambridge, and then for my Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees with John Perry at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Before I came to the US my main teachers were at first my mother, Sima Schwartz, and then the distinguished pedagogue Victor Derevianko. I learned so much from all my teachers (including also many chamber music coaches and through master classes with numerous artists), my studies in the US were inspiring and rigorous.
How strong are your ties to your former home city of Kharkiv today?
I went back to perform with the Kharkiv Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005. I performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 and Ravel’s G Major Concerto, conducted by Yuriy Yanko. I have stayed in touch with many friends in Kharkiv, and my father lives there. I also went back to Kyiv a number of times, to perform as a soloist with various orchestras there and to perform solo and chamber music recitals, mainly premiering music by Ukrainian composer Yuri Ishchenko, who sadly passed away in May 2021. Now, since the start of this war, my ties to Kharkiv are becoming even stronger. I collaborated with artists there and am looking for music by Kharkiv composers to perform and/or teach in the US. My heart is breaking over what is happening in Kharkiv and in all of Ukraine.
How do you feel that your heritage informs your playing and your choice of repertoire?
My specialty is premiering, performing, recording, and promoting music by living composers. Much of it is written specifically for me, most often for my thematic recording projects. I mainly work with composers in the US, but I also work with composers in Ukraine and plan to do this even more now. Even though I was young when I lived in Ukraine, I learned and performed much contemporary repertoire even then, a lot of it written by Ukrainian composers working in the Soviet Union (Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union when I lived there).
Given that No Dead Guys is devoted to the piano music of living composers, I’m thrilled that you’ve devoted much of your career to performing and recording new music. What drew you to new music and why did you choose to make a name for yourself in this repertoire?
To me there is no greater joy and professional satisfaction than working with talented living composers. I feel that this is what I was meant to do. I have always loved playing contemporary music, and being able to develop a piece together with a composer from the very first stage is such an honor, privilege, and overall thrilling experience. I love sharing my imagination and ideas with composers and hearing their feedback as I learn their pieces, and then bringing their works to life for the first time and sharing them with audiences. I strongly believe that this is a very important task for performers—to promote newly-written music. This helps keep classical music alive, exciting, and relevant, and will leave repertoire for future generations to play.
Tell me about your Grammy-Award winning album The Poetry of Places—eight compositions about places as diverse as the Copland House in Cortlandt, NY, The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Louis Kahn’s National Assembly Buildings in Bangladesh, Newgrange Ancient Temple in Ireland, and Frank Gehry’s House in Santa Monica, CA. What inspired this project, and how did you go about commissioning the pieces?
I was invited by Piano Spheres to perform a recital at Walt Disney Concert Hall’s REDCAT in 2015. Through this wonderful new music series I was given an opportunity to commission a few composers to write music for this concert. As it was time for me to start a new commissioning and recording project, I wanted to bring together music and architecture, especially given the opportunity to perform in the stunning musical space designed by Frank Gehry. I like to come up with interesting topics for my recording projects, often through combining different art forms. Lewis Spratlan, who is the composer of all the music on Invasion album, wrote the very first piece completed for The Poetry of Places program, titled Bangladesh. His piece was based on architect Louis Kahn’s striking National Assembly Buildings in Bangladesh.
I always had deep interest in architecture. When I moved to Los Angeles with my husband 25 years ago, one of the first things we did was visit the Frank Gehry residence, just to see it from the outside. It’s so interesting that almost 20 years after that I ended up performing and recording a piece by Andrew Norman written specifically about the Gehry residence! 8 wonderful American composers Amy Beth Kirsten, Hannah Lash, James Matheson, Harold Meltzer, Andrew Norman, Lewis Spratlan, Nina C. Young, and Jack Van Zandt wrote pieces for The Poetry of Places album. The instrumentation included piano, toy piano, voice, electronics, and percussion instruments hand-made out of materials Frank Gehry house is made of. It was quite a journey, and it was so interesting how different and personal the inspirations behind the various pieces were. And I loved collaborating with the stellar Los Angeles Philharmonic pianist Joanne Pearce Martin and Los Angeles Percussion Quartet artists Nick Terry and Cory Hills. And to top off the great experience, we were fortunate to record the album at Skywalker Sound, a stunning and unique place to be at, especially when recording an album about inspiring places!
Like many concerned people all over the world, I’ve been horrified by Russia’s invasion of and ongoing attack on Ukraine. As a Ukrainian, what was your first response to this act of aggression, and how did you translate your feelings into this recording, Invasion?
The war in Ukraine started on my birthday, on February 24, 2022. It was the worst birthday experience I have ever had, I was crying all night. I was closely following the developments leading up to that day and as soon as the first bombs fell on Kharkiv I heard about it from my friends and family there. Since then I have been working nonstop, trying to help. I performed fundraising concerts and immediately started working on the Invasion album, to raise funds for Ukraine humanitarian aid and to show solidarity with Ukraine. Also, I haven’t felt well since the war started. There is this constant uneasy dreadful feeling that doesn’t go away. I found it helpful to pour my emotions into the music. Music heals and helps people deal with tragedy, and I am fortunate to be a musician and to be able to express my feelings and activism through music.
You and your record label, Reference Recordings, chose to have 100% of the proceeds from Invasion go to Ukrainian people affected by the war. How has the response been, both from your listeners and from those benefitting from your generosity?
I am very grateful to my label Reference Recordings and to all the people working there for their tireless work on this album and for their willingness to help and to donate all the funds to help Ukraine. I know that many people in Ukraine and here are appreciative of this recording. People in Ukraine are determined to continue living their lives despite the daily tragedies, their resilience is admirable. Ukraine is giving extensive coverage to this album and I hope it gives people there a moment of respite, a break from the atrocities. There are many people I have spoken with and have heard from since the release who were very positive about it. Most importantly, I hope that Ukrainians feel the love and support from me and from humans all over the world, and I hope that the financial contribution helps people affected by this war. I just did a live interview on Ukraine’s main TV Station 1+1 (virtually) and was honored to be able to share this music and art with wide audiences there. You can watch the interview with English subtitles that I just uploaded to my YouTube page.
You write that you commissioned all of the artwork used in the Invasion album booklet from Ukrainian artists, and that some of these paintings were made by children in Kharkiv. How did you go about finding these artists and arranging these commissions?
My goal with this recording was not just to support humanitarian aid once the album was released, but also to support as many artists currently living and working in Ukraine as possible, and to promote their work here in the US. I found that many artists in Ukraine started making paintings and artworks in response to this war. Art is a powerful tool to spread awareness and make a statement. I spent many weeks looking through various art I discovered through reading articles from Ukraine and observing art posts on social media before I chose the artists I ended up working with. I used some of the art that was already made in response to this war and I also commissioned art as a specific response to all the musical pieces on this album (I have artworks from multiple artists for each piece on this CD). The drawings made by children in Kharkiv are poignant. These children were students of artist Mykola Kolomiyets in the art studio Aza Nizi Maza. When the war started, the studio became a bomb shelter. Many families in Kharkiv started sheltering in the subway and Mykola and other studio staff worked with children hiding from the bombs in the subway every day and helped them create powerful art in response to this war. They even held exhibits in the metro station Historical Museum, and the huge art installations they made might still be there now. Professional artists I collaborated with include Yurii Nagulko, Lesia Babliak, Kati Prusenko, and Olena Papka. These incredible artists have been creating art nonstop, despite everything, and have been active in contributing their art to spread awareness about the war and to raise funds for Ukraine. I also worked with a video montage artist Yaroslav Mankovskyi in Lviv to make the trailer for this album, showcasing much of the art and the music from the album’s title track. I highly encourage everyone to download the booklet for Invasion album to see these stunning artworks and to read the bios and stories of these artists. The booklet can be downloaded here.
Given that you have also been giving fundraising concerts featuring the music of Ukrainian composers, why did you choose to feature the music of Pulitzer Prize winning composer Lewis Spratlan on the Invasion album?
Planning for and releasing an album of world premieres takes many years. The kinds of albums I release usually feature over 75 minutes of music written specifically for my recording projects. Lew and I have already been working on an album together before this war started. He wrote many of the pieces for me during the pandemic and before that. On the day the war started we decided to change the direction of our album and make it a benefit for Ukraine. Lew immediately began writing his ensemble piece Invasion about this war and completed it in under one month. I was able to gather a group of world class musicians—conductor Anthony Parnther, saxophonist Pat Posey, horn player Aija Mattson-Jovel, trombonist Phil Keen, percussionist Yuri Inoo, and mandolin player Joti Rockwell, to perform and record this powerful piece with me. Lew is an unusually prolific composer, he writes a huge amount of work in a very short time. Our original plan was to release an album of his works in 2023, but because we wanted to make an impact now we worked tirelessly to get this project completed in record time. I literally slept 2-3 hours per night working on this project for many months.
I currently have multiple albums lined up to be recorded and released in the next few years. In fact, I was supposed to release an album about soccer this fall, featuring works I commissioned with support from New Music USA by Christopher Cerrone, Ian Dicke, Oliver Dubon, Tom Flaherty, Dana Kaufman, David Sanford, Adam Schoenberg, Evan Ware, and Pamela Z, in time for the World Cup. I had to postpone the release of that album to make room for Invasion album due to the war, but I will be recording the soccer-inspired pieces this January for a 2023 release. I also recently recorded Ukrainian composer Yuri Ishchenko’s Piano Sonata No. 6 for a private album celebrating the 80th birthday of one of my piano teachers Victor Derevianko, who currently lives in Italy. I hope to be able to collaborate with other Ukrainian composers on future projects.
You’ve collaborated quite a bit with composer Lewis Spratlan. How did you two become acquainted and why do you feel you connect to his music so well?
Lew and I have an unusual musical connection and deep friendship. We seem to understand each other in a rewarding way. His music speaks to me through its powerful and deeply-felt emotion, imaginative colors, herculean virtuosic difficulty (I like a challenge!), serene poetry, and sophisticated structure. Lew also wrote a note in the booklet describing our musical connection:
“My collaboration with Nadia Shpachenko began seven years ago when she invited me to contribute a piece to the repertoire for the CD she was working on at the time. This disc was called The Poetry of Places and was concerned with the linkage between music and architecture. My piece, Bangladesh, was about the transformation brought about in that country by the construction of Louis Kahn’s brilliant Government Center. The CD went on to win a GRAMMY® Award. Nadia’s performance was spellbinding, combining the muscular portrayal of a collection of massive buildings with the subtlest rendering of tenderness and intimacy. This emotional range is what drew me so strongly to Nadia’s artistry. It is on full display in the five works of this CD. The monstrous cruelty of war in Invasion, the intricacy and athleticism in Piano Suite No. 1 and Two Sonatas, the humour and occasional violence in Six Rags, and the enveloping and multi-dimensional humanity of Wonderer show an artist in full command of the communicative power of music.”
Given the dark theme, Invasion could have been unpleasantly grim. This collection of pieces—ranging from playful piano rags to the stunning title track, “Invasion”—runs the range of human emotions. Why did you feel it was important to include so many glimmers of musical hope in this collection?
Hope is what we need to never lose, especially in seemingly impossible and unresolvable situations. Ukrainian people have demonstrated this from day one of this war. I wanted this album to reflect my hope for victory and end to this nightmare, and to not only describe the atrocities of this war, but to convey the full range of human emotions. On the other hand, even though some of the pieces were written before the war, my interpretation of all the works on this album was greatly influenced by my feelings about this war and the current situation. As I mentioned in the booklet:
“But interspersed with joyful ragtime music, there is still tumult. They remind me of my joy in discovering music while in Ukraine, in particular my orchestral debut at age 12 in the newly built Opera Theatre. But the tumult reminds me that the theatre is now shattered.”
These kinds of images of current events and destruction, but also of hope and resilience of people in Ukraine (like for example the videos I saw of high school seniors dancing in formal attire in front of ruins of their high school in Kharkiv), were very present as I was practicing and interpreting all the pieces on this album.
Will sheet music be made available for the music featured on Invasion? If so, how and where might we purchase it?
All the music featured on Invasion album is published and is available for purchasing and performing. It can be found at Oxingale Music.
How may concerned non-Ukrainian people help the people of Ukraine?
One way to show support is to promote Ukrainian culture through the arts. Musicians and venues can program music by Ukrainian composers and can invite Ukrainian performers, museums and art galleries can showcase art by Ukrainian artists. I currently have stunning art that I commissioned for my Invasion project (it is displayed in the Invasion booklet), that I hope to place in galleries for many people to see. I have some of the original paintings here in the US. Learning about Ukraine, it’s culture, and it’s musical history helps as well.
Financially, there are many aid organizations. Different options can be found at Impactful Ninja.
I also heard great things about the Brother’s Brother Foundation. They help with urgent medical needs in Ukraine and with refugee aid, among other things.
And finally there is a foundation that specifically supports Ukrainian musicians, and I have heard first-hand testimony that many wounded and displaced Ukrainian musicians were sent funds directly by Lisa Batiashvili Foundation.
GRAMMY® Award-winning Ukrainian-American pianist Nadia Shpachenko enjoys bringing into the world things that are outside the box—powerful pieces that often possess unusual sonic qualities or instrumentation. Described as a “gifted and versatile pianist” (San Francisco Chronicle), “one of today’s foremost promoters of contemporary music” (Textura Magazine), and “a great friend and champion of new music” (Fanfare Magazine), Nadia performed recitals at Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, on the Piano Spheres and Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella and Chamber Music Series, and with numerous orchestras in Europe and the Americas. She premiered more than 100 works by Armando Bayolo, Elliott Carter, Christopher Cerrone, Paul Chihara, George Crumb, Ian Dicke, Daniel Felsenfeld, Tom Flaherty, Annie Gosfield, Yuri Ishchenko, Vera Ivanova, Dana Kaufman, Leon Kirchner, Amy Beth Kirsten, Hannah Lash, James Matheson, Missy Mazzoli, Harold Meltzer, David Sanford, Isaac Schankler, Alexander Shchetynsky, Adam Schoenberg, Lewis Spratlan, Evan Ware, Gernot Wolfgang, Iannis Xenakis, Peter Yates, Pamela Z, Jack Van Zandt, and many others.
Described as “The outstanding contemporary-music disc of the year” (Fanfare Magazine), Nadia’s new Reference Recordings album “Invasion: Music and Art for Ukraine” was released on September 23, 2022, with 100% of proceeds being donated to Ukraine humanitarian aid charities. “Invasion” album features world premiere recordings of solo and chamber music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lewis Spratlan, recorded with Anthony Parnther, conductor, Pat Posey, saxophone, Aija Mattson-Jovel, horn, Phil Keen, trombone; Yuri Inoo, percussion, and Joti Rockwell, mandolin, as well as artworks by Ukrainian artists Yurii Nagulko, Lesia Babliak, Kati Prusenko, Olena Papka, and Aza Nizi Maza Studio children artists directed by Mykola Kolomiyets.
Described as “superb… evocative… pure magic” (I Care If You Listen), Nadia’s 2019 Reference Recordings CD “The Poetry of Places” features premieres of solo and collaborative works (performed with LA Phil pianist Joanne Pearce Martin and LAPQ percussionists Nick Terry and Cory Hills) inspired by diverse buildings. “The Poetry of Places” album won the 62nd Best Classical Compendium GRAMMY® Award. “Sure to remain a mainstay of the contemporary discography for posterity” (New Classic LA), Nadia’s 2018 Reference Recordings CD “Quotations and Homages” features premieres of solo and collaborative works for 6 pianists (performed with Ray-Kallay Duo, HOCKET and Genevieve Feiwen Lee) inspired by a variety of earlier composers and pieces. Nadia’s Reference Recordings “CD Woman at the New Piano: American Music of 2013” was nominated for 58th GRAMMY Awards® in 3 categories. She is also featured on José Serebrier’s 2021 Reference Recordings album “Last Tango Before Sunrise,” Wouter Kellerman’s 2021 South African Music Award winning album “We’ve Known All Times,” Isaac Schankler’s 2019 Aerocade Music album “Because Patterns,” Gernot Wolfgang’s 2019 Albany Records album “Vienna and the West,” and Genevieve Vincent’s 2018 Mano Walker EP “Petit Rêve.” Nadia’s recording projects are supported by grants from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, The Alice M. Ditson Fund at Columbia University, and New Music USA, among others.
As a distinguished chamber musician, Nadia frequently collaborates with prominent artists, most recently including Boris Allakhverdyan, Sarah Cahill, Martin Chalifour, Jin-Shan Dai, Kevin Fitz-Gerald, Vijay Gupta, Dahae Kim, Jerome Lowenthal, Kathleen Supové, Ben Ullery, and the Lyris and Argus Quartets. Her recent collaborative performances were featured on Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Chamber Music Series and the Hear Now Music Festival.
Nadia Shpachenko is Professor of Music at Cal Poly Pomona University, where she leads the Piano Performance program and was awarded the 2017 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activities. Born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Nadia completed her DMA and MM degrees at the University of Southern California, where she was awarded the title of Outstanding Graduate. Her principal teachers included John Perry, Victor Rosenbaum, and Victor Derevianko. Nadia Shpachenko is a Steinway Artist and a Schoenhut Toy Piano Artist.