On this longest night of the year, I am thrilled to announce the release of my first solo EP Starlit Sky, just the music to listen to while gazing at the stars and think about loved ones in places far and near. This three-song cycle sets poetry by pre-eminent Ukrainian writer Lesya Ukrainka, blending Ukrainian folk elements with contemporary classical techniques and a studio recording and mixing aesthetic. Created on two continents, three countries and five cities, this project was a way to forge connections in the time of pandemic and war. I’m honoured to release this EP with I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free, a label which donates the proceeds to Ukrainian humanitarian and self-defense foundations and activists. So, by supporting my music, you are also supporting Ukraine’s fight for freedom!
In this small cycle of poems, Lesya Ukrainka speaks to a lonely star, projecting her own feelings of melancholy and isolation onto this distant, cool speck. Friends and lovers separated by distance have long comforted themselves by looking up at the same stars, knowing that at least their gazes can embrace in that same light.
I wrote the music and recording my voice in my bedroom in Vancouver, Canada during pandemic lockdowns. My friends, double bassists Florent Ghys and Ryan Baird, recorded in their bedrooms and living rooms in New Jersey and California. Iryna Danylejko, folk singer, ethnomusicologist and my longtime collaborator, recorded her voice on two of the songs in Chernivtsi, Ukraine in the first few months following the start of russia’s full-scale invasion. She fled there from Kyiv with her three children. In the first weeks of russia’s brutal full-scale assault, she couldn’t sing at all. She was barely holding herself together and she felt that singing would crack her open. I am so honoured that she recorded this for me when she did find her voice again. The mixing and mastering was done by Yuriy Bulychev in Dnipro, Ukraine in the summer of 2023. He did an amazing job putting all of us into one fantastical space. The evocative artwork was created in response to the music by Olson Olberburg, who fled occupied Kherson (my own hometown) and has been a refugee in Sweden for over a year and a half.
It took a long time for this little project to come together and I can’t be more proud of it! Thank you for supporting my music and Ukraine’s fight for freedom! And check out other releases on the label. They are more in the electronic experimental realm and are really cool.
Bandcamp (preferred): https://ishallsinguntilmylandisfree.bandcamp.com/…/star…
Spotify (if you have to): https://open.spotify.com/album/0H8vSmBYHr5hDIpGYcSiJc…
I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free: https://ishallsinguntilmylandisfree.bandcamp.com/
I would like to acknowledge support by the Shevchenko Foundation, which funded some of the recording costs.
