Hello and welcome to Future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte, on Women's Radio Station, the program where we search for the most amazing new female artists on the classical panorama. Today on Future Classic Women Awards, um, we have another very special guest, is a Ukrainian student, um, Natalia Zenitska, violinist, postgraduate student of the London Performing Academy of Music, talking to us from Ukraine. Good morning, Natalia. Hello, Stefania. Good morning. Natalia, where are you now? Where are you talking from? Now I am on the west of Ukraine. I am at my parents' house, and it's a big luck because we have spent 1.5 months in an occupied city, occupied territory. But we had the luck to go away from there, so now we are here. So you were a student of the, um, Kharkiv University together with the boyfriend, uh, Mikhailo, who is a violinist as well, postgraduate student. And, um, I mean, were you in Kharkiv when the war started? No, actually we were not there because we left Kharkiv at the last evening before the war. Yeah, actually there were a few reasons for that. First of all, grandma of my boyfriend was really sick and we were afraid of her and we wanted to see her. Yeah. That was the most important reason, but also I had a feeling, an intuition that the war might start. So I thought maybe we should leave Kharkiv for a few days, at least for a few days, and to wait to see what can happen. Yeah, but we could leave it and go to Melitopol, but who could expect that the city might become occupied so fast. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, can you tell me, I mean, what happened when Melitopol got occupied? You know, I was talking with Mykhailo, trying to organize for you and Mykhailo to come over to London to continue your studies here when the war started. Because LPMAM, the London Performing Academy of Music, was partner with Kyiv University and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Kyiv. So much that I was about to go, um, I was supposed to go to Kyiv on the 22nd for a week, and, um, 22nd of February, and luckily my flight got cancelled. So a lot of luck and good sky, a combination of events that allowed us, you know, allowed you not to be in Kharkiv when the war started, and then actually to be able to escape Melitopol. But I mean, what was your life when Melitopol got invaded? So first of all, we were really scared and shocked, and We didn't know what is happening for a few days because when we just arrived to the city, to Melitopol, we heard explosions maybe after 30 minutes when we just came home. Oh wow. Yeah, so, and it was early morning and everything has started. We realized that it's war because I already told that I expected it, but I hope that it will not happen. I think everyone hoped till the end, till the last moment. And then maybe when it was second day after the war started, we didn't have any connection, any internet. Also, we didn't have electricity, water. And heating, and we had just gas, and that already was a lot to us because we could at least cook food. Wow. Yeah, but we didn't have internet and we didn't know any news, and we even didn't know that we are occupied. We thought that maybe there are some fights because we heard explosions, we heard some scary sounds, but we didn't know who wins. Yeah, so I think that that were one of the hardest days there because this obscurity and unknowing, so it was really hard mentally. Of course it would be. I mean, it is hard for anyone, even for us watching what's happening and trying to, to help however we can. So it's— I can't even to think about, you know, losing your house and losing your university, your life, your everyday life. Um, but, you know, and also, um, Mikhailo is 23 and, uh, you are around the same age, so you're all very young, and, um, it's something that shouldn't happen at any age, really. And how is the grandma of Mikhailo? Did you manage to escape with, uh, grandma as well from Melitopol? No, unfortunately not. We, uh, we went just two of us. Yeah, so his parents and grandma stayed there, but currently they're more or less fine. So we try to keep in touch with them and hope that they, they will manage to leave Melitopol. But actually, they want to stay at their house because it's their home. Yeah. And it's hard to accept, but, but that's their decision. Okay. All right. It's a very understandable decision, you know, when you have built your, your life and the family on a house and having to leave it, it's, it's not fair. So the good is that you and Mykhailo are young and you can build a new future. And as a musician, did you have in mind already to leave Ukraine, or you thought you would just stay in Ukraine forever? Actually, I had a wish to live somewhere else. And I already had this experience because I studied one year in Spain as Erasmus student. All right. Yeah, so it was really interesting experience and it helped me a lot to reconsider my perception of music, of life, everything. So I think it's, it's really useful and everyone should have this experience. But we didn't want to see the world as refugees. It's, of course, we couldn't imagine that. Absolutely. Well, that, it's beautiful what you said about going to Spain and realizing a different, looking at music in a different perspective. And as well, life is a completely different culture and way of of experiencing music as well as a professional musician as it is here in the UK. And I'm Italian, so I had the same exact experience when I was invited to study at the Royal Academy of Music, and I studied in France as well. And the beauty, the beauty of music, it's that we love the differences in it. We love meeting with people from different countries, different cultures, different music schools and techniques. And mix up and create something new together. So, so in a way, um, you know, you're gonna have a wonderful experience here in London at the London Performing Academy of Music and, uh, with the music that is already so international here in this country. And then hopefully, you know, um, we will be able to recreate and bring back things when the war will finish. So let's start by listening to you, um, performing now. Of course, you are a student, postgraduate, so these are recordings from your, your performance. They are, they are not CD recording. So we're gonna listen to your beautiful Caprice by Paganini, number Ah, bravissima! This voice, Paganini, Paganini Capriccio number 5, performed by Alpimam student Natalia Zinitska. Now Natalia, I mean, among all the Paganini Capriccios Awesome. Which one is your favorite? Is it this one that you perform, or there is others that you wish you could play or you are gonna perform soon? Uh, so I really like Paganini's Caprice No. 11. I performed it before, before the Caprice No. 5, I think, and it, it was quite complicated to me, but, but I really liked that. So now I'm gonna ask you, you know, how did you decide to become a violinist and how, I mean, I know, you know, Paganini becomes somehow something that any violinist has to learn, but Paganini was an incredible genius, was a mad genius really. So how difficult it is to actually try to perform any of Paganini's Capriccios And if you ever thought in your youth, younger youth, because you're already younger, but you know, when you were a child, for example, that one day you would have become, you would have wanted to perform Paganini Capriccios. Yeah, so when I was a child, I loved music from the early childhood, and my parents played the guitar, but they were amateurs. So they were not professional musicians. They just loved to play guitar, to sing. So I, I still had music environment, uh, unless they were not professional musicians. And when I was, I think, 7, they bought me a piano. It was like electronic piano. Yeah. And I liked to to play some songs by ear. So I didn't know the notes, but I played some songs by ear. And I wanted to play piano from the first moment when I tried it, and I dreamt about piano. But when I went to the music school, it was the end of the summer, the last day of the summer. And we— the, the studies here in Ukraine, I don't know about England, but here in Ukraine, uh, the academic year starts on 1st of September. Is it the same? No, here is start— well, depends, it depends from the school. Primary school, yes, the first Monday of September. University normally starts in the middle. Yeah, so here we start on the 1st of September, and I came there on 31st of August, and the administration of music school told me that we don't have free places for piano because it's too popular instrument. All right. But you can play violin, so they cheated a bit. They told me, you can choose the violin and then next year you can take an additional instrument, piano. And I was like, okay, I don't mind, I just want to play the music. Yeah. Yeah, so it was a bit spontaneous decision, but yeah, I don't regret about that because as a result I like playing violin more than piano because I had to play piano in university and in school, but I liked violin much more than piano. Well, you know, I'm a pianist myself and I have to say I love violin. They are different instruments, isn't it? There is different possibilities, expressive possibilities from each of the two instruments. So it's— and also the violin is such a difficult instrument. Yeah, yeah. I also like to listen to piano, listen to piano, but I mean, I don't have such high skills in piano as in violin. So I think that's the biggest reason why I like violin more, because I have more opportunities to express myself. You know, there is something I'm very jealous of the violinists, is the fact that you have these beautiful instruments and they are your own instrument, and then you can go anywhere around the world and bring it with you. So it becomes a sort of a part of yourself, isn't it? And, and also sometimes you have the opportunity to perform on a historical instrument like a Stradivarius that has been played by incredibly talented in the past, including Paganini, for example. And with the piano, you don't get that because a piano that old wouldn't sound very good. So you need to have a modern instrument where possible. So do you, do you, do you feel that? Do you feel like the violin is part of you? Yeah, sure. Because even when you, when you take someone's, someone else's violin, someone else's instrument, you have to get used to that, and it's absolutely different. And I was always impressed by pianists who can just touch any instrument and be already really like be already friend with this instrument in few minutes. I see. For me, as for violinist, it's really hard. All right, I never thought about that, but yeah, you're right. Well, we have to, otherwise we don't play. Yeah, we don't have much choice. Okay, now I have a personal question. How is it to have a boyfriend violinist that does the same job as you? Um, like, do you share tips to each other when you are practicing, for example? Or like, do you play together? Or It's— you keep that separate. Yeah, actually we were playing in one quartet. Ah, right, I didn't know that. Yeah, so, but we were not dating at that moment. So I had experience to play a lot of music with my boyfriend and it was really great because we always had the understanding and I think that it was very useful to us even at that moment when we were not dating. And but when we just started to date, I told him that I've never wanted to have a boyfriend who is violinist. Funny enough, you can't really choose, is it? You can't say, oh no, you can't be my boyfriend because you play the violin. Yeah, so it's funny and it sounds really weird, I think, but it was like that. But actually, we discovered a lot of music together and we played together, and it's impossibly useful and fun to to discuss some things about our feelings, our perception of music. And I think that we grew up a lot together. I mean, in sense as musicians, and we helped each other a lot. That's absolutely beautiful. Also, there is one thing that is fantastic. I mean, you know, this program is on the women's radio station. And we normally talk about the pros and the cons of being a woman classical musician. So we talk about the beauty, of course, of our job as musician, but then of as well the problems of having a family, of having relationships, physical illness. We had some guests that they had cancer and then they had to go stage, you know, and that affect you, the way you perform, also the perception of yourself on stage for the public that is looking at you. So there is a lot of different aspects. Um, I guess, and I, and I ask you for confirmation about these, if the fact of doing the same job is actually helping you not having the problem of having a boyfriend that says, oh, you know, uh, I want to go on holiday, and you say no because I have to tour with the orchestra, for example, or have a concert that I need to practice? Yeah, actually it helps a lot that we understand all the aspects of our job, our studies, and we know that we have to manage our life and to plan our time. Adapting to all the important things that we have related to job, to music, to studies, and etc. We were able to do that despite we were really busy almost all the time, but we found some time for theaters, for walking, for anything. Also, we could practice at the same time, we could work at the same time. So it's really great. Beautiful. Now I have a very, very funny question. I mean, I know you're young, so it's not the time to speak about children. Do you think in the future that if you have children, if you get married with Mikhailo and then you have children, you will want them to become musicians as well? Pardon. Musicians as well. Thank you. Uh, so I don't know. First of all, I don't know if I want to have children because it's a bit— well, I don't know if I want to marry Mika. No, I'm joking. Yeah, of course it's not the time, but you know, it will happen maybe one day. And then maybe you will have— I can tell you I have a child. I'm not married to a musician, so I thought I would get to musician. And then in the end, I met my husband. And you know how it is, you can't— there is an Italian expression, it says you can't, uh, give orders to your heart. So it's your heart to decide, your brain can think as much as you want. Exactly. And, um, and so my husband is not a musician, um, and my daughter is incredibly musical. She can sing Mozart and anything, you know, we're listening to the radio or me practicing, and then she's just continuing and singing Rachmaninoff or whatever, but she doesn't want to learn because she knows it's too much work. Yeah, at least for now. So that makes me very sad, I have to say. When I was in Kyiv last time in October, I remember I saw a boy. He was, um, 11. So we signed the partnership with the president of the conservatoire, and then they, uh, they gifted me with this concert of this very talented, uh, boy and girl, both 11 And I could not not cry, you know, thinking about how fantastic they were and how I wish my daughter was like them, you know, I would be such a proud mama, but that's not the case. I'm a proud mama anyway, but yeah. So, you know, the, the difficultness also of our job, you know, of studying, the hours of practicing and the uncertainty also sometimes of getting a stable remuneration income. As a musician. So would you dream for your children to follow the same step as you, or you would prefer them maybe to have a more stable job, or I don't know, like becoming a lawyer or a doctor, or I don't know? What do you think? Um, actually, I think that each Child has to, to be, has to be involved to an art and to discover art for, for him or for her. And it's, it's really important for personal growing. And you can be a doctor, you can be a lawyer, and anyone else, but if you if you grow in musical environment, or for example, if you look at the pieces of art from the early childhood, I think that it influenced a lot your personality and your worldview and everything. So I think that I would definitely I get my— try to find my children an opportunity to know the art, to be familiar with art, but I am not sure if I would like they did that professionally. So it depends. I think you have to try to investigate the psychology and to understand the specific of nervous system of your child and and etc., and then to decide. Yeah, well, sometimes also talent doesn't really follow, not always. So most of the time though, I have to say, there is many children of famous musicians who then become very accomplished musicians themselves. So also there is the problem when you are a famous musician that your child has struggle because everyone is expecting them. To follow in the same steps and to have the same talent. And maybe that doesn't happen, and it's somehow too much pressure on the child, isn't it? So you're right, you're very right, that there is different situations. And another very good Italian saying— English as well— open the umbrella when it rains. So let's see. Yeah, it's great, it's a good idea. All right, now let's listen to Michaela. Here's Sonata No. 5 by Isaïe. Wow! And this was Isaïe, Sonata Number 5, performed live by Mikhail Fezenko. So, uh, I mean, performed with no editing, no cuts. So it's absolutely brilliant, and, um, it's wonderful to see such talent, both of you, Natalia and Mikhailo, and the that we are gonna be able to welcome you soon here in the UK to continue to make more beautiful music. Um, thank you so much. You're very welcome. Um, so for the people that are listening to us, this is the first time we're talking about this, but, um, there was this wonderful opportunity. There is this law in Ukraine that students are allowed— male students are allowed to leave Ukraine and not to go to the military service if they can, if they need to continue their studies. And because LPMA was partnered with Kharkiv University and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory before the war started, the military office, not all of them, but, um, few of them, they've been so generous and to actually allowing male students to get a white ticket and to be able to leave Ukraine and come here. So we're ready. We were super fortunate to find the two fantastic hosts here in the UK that, um, they, they are in the arts as well, actors and theaters directors, um, that they're gonna open their home to Natalia and Mikhailo. And, um, and we're just waiting for Mikhailo to receive his white ticket, um, today. We're keeping our fingers very crossed. Have you already packed your bags and are you ready to come as soon as you get this ticket, Natalia? Yeah, of course, we, we want— we dream to get it as soon as possible, but We don't want to pack our bags too soon because we know that we have many problems and bureaucracy problems. So we just hope for best and do everything that is possible from our side and help. And thank you, Stefania, for your help because you are doing impossibly a lot for us and I just don't have words to express all the gratefulness we, we have, we feel. So I, I really hope that everything will be fine and we will be able to go to England and to make art, make music there together with you, because it's really hard and it's a big pressure to make art in this situation here. Yeah, so it's— we are very praised to, to get this opportunity. Well, you know, you deserve it, and, uh, you know, if we could, we would come and get you physically, you know, out of there. So we cannot wait. Um, also, you will— you need to know, I had other students who got the white ticket and then they were stopped at the border by other military official, and I had to speak with them over the phone. So I will keep my phone open and call me anytime, or like even if the military office there where you are right now needs to talk to me so that we can, you know, push the thing and make the case and the fact that we need you here. We have a concert coming up on the 17th of May, and so I really hope you will be here, and it will be wonderful fundraising events for scholarship for more students as well, that they will have this opportunity to come and continue their studies here in the UK. So that could be an extra push for, for them, because I know they, they allowed some other musicians to leave for performing concerts. So we're doing everything we can, we're gonna do it. Um, now on a more lighter side of these. Normally when I do an interview, so we talk about the pros and the cons of these musical careers and studies, of course, and we, we ask, you know, what was your most exciting— one of the questions is what was the most exciting moment for you, the best place to perform, or the best piece you ever played, you know, the most exciting moment in your career as a violinist? So actually, I have a few of the most memorable moments, performances, but one of them is the performance when I played the Elgar violin concerto. Oh, beautiful! Yeah, I really love this concerto, and I did my my bachelor's thesis about this concerto as well. So I know a lot about Elgar and about this concerto, and I was listening to it thousands of times and was investigating it a lot, and I am really glad that I was able to play it once. Ah, beautiful! Oh, I wish we had the recording. Do you have a recording of this concerto? No, unfortunately. Ah, so terrible, because those are moments, you know, I, I— it happens sometimes. I don't know if you were playing with the orchestra of the Conservatoire, for example, but when you perform with professional orchestras, sometimes there is copyrights and things coming in the way, and so you're not allowed to record, but It's totally unfair because you're not necessarily recording to sell a CD and make money out of it. You're recording it to keep it as a, you know, as a wonderful memory of that event. I had— I remember once I performed, the first time I performed, the St. Martin in the Fields, and the voice says no one is allowed to record. And my husband at the time was my boyfriend friend didn't dare to record, and I only learned that at the end. I was like, yeah, but I'm the performer, you can record me, you have the permit to do this. But he didn't know because he heard that, so we missed that. Um, yes, so definitely when it happened, you, you want to record everything, even if it goes wrong, you know. Talking of which, did he ever— anything went embarrassingly wrong. For example, we had some artists that were telling us that they went to the concerts and they forgot the shoes, so they had to— oh good— with the gym shoes under the concert gown. But then the concert gown, you know, is normally cut so that you have aisles, so you had to stay on the tippy-toe. Oh, we had a quartet and the cellist told me that she, by mistake, she pinpoint with the cello the dress of Viola, and they all stumbled, and it was just crazy. And so, did they have anything happen to you? Hmm, I, I have to think a bit because I, I don't remember such a bright experience. Well, very good then. Let's have time for them to happen, and don't worry about it. I'm just really, really anxious about everything before the performance. So I check everything million times, billion times before the concert, before the performance. So usually I am well prepared. Ah, very good, very good. Well, to me it happened, for example, once I was performing in the big theater in my hometown that is now called the Pavarotti Theatre, and I had to perform a contemporary piece, so I had the music for that. And I went on stage, I got the applause, then I go sit at the piano and the music wasn't there. And I was sure I left it there, but because we had the fire alarm drill just before we were supposed to go on stage, we all left the theatre And I think someone took the music and put it in my dressing room. I don't know. But in any case, I lost like 10 years in that moment thinking, oh my gosh, I can't play, you know. So that was quite a crazy adventure. Yeah. But if you had to choose your favorite piece ever, so you talked about the wonderful performance of Elgar Concerto. Do you have any other piece that you're dreaming to perform one day? Uh, it's Sibelius Concerto. I haven't played yet, but I, I love it. I really love it. And also, also I think Sonata Sophie Zay because I, I haven't played any of them yet. Misha played— Misha already played, I think, 3 or 4 of them. Ah. And I still haven't, so— Okay, very good. Well, you know, I am double of your age, and without making numbers or mathematics, but I can tell you that still I have things I need to practice and need to learn and want to learn and play one day, you know. So the beauty of our job is actually that it never stops. There is always something that you want to learn, something new. My maximum was when I performed and toured with the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto, but then I want to learn and tour with the Paganini Variations by Rachmaninoff, for example. And then of course there is Brahms, Chopin that I, I studied and performed but not toured, so, or record, for example. So yeah, so there is plenty to, to do when you come here. So do you have a note? Did you take down a note? Okay, as soon as I arrive in England, I want to practicing this or that. I know you actually, you had the problem with your shoulder, right? So you have— First of all, I have to solve that because I checked it before the war and they told me, doctors told me that they recommend me to make an operation, but I haven't practiced a lot since that. I tried a bit, but really carefully because I already did not very smart things. I mean, when I shouldn't practice, I practiced because I couldn't find really good doctors who would tell me what to do exactly. Unfortunately, in Ukraine, we don't have doctors that understand specifics of musician's job. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes they gave me some advices that just didn't work, and I waste a lot of time, and things just got worse because of that. And I was really worried about that, and this question is still not solved. But, but at least now it doesn't hurt me so much, so I think maybe it got better just by itself. So I— yeah, it could be, you know, could be, might have been just an inflammation, for example, of the nerves. And that— you're right, you need to see a specialist for— there is a specialist, um, and for sports and, um, and music, uh, they're called. So they're doctors that they work with because the sportsmen and musicians are very similar. They overstress some very specific muscles and they need to be resolved in a way that then you can use those muscles again. So for example, I have a friend, he's an organist, and he had the problem with the shoulder that is typical of organists and conductors because they always keep their hands in certain positions for hours and hours. So, you know, people go to concerts and they see the musician, they think, oh, it's beautiful, but actually there is so much physical physical work behind it and physical strain really to the muscles and the body and the, and the bones. Um, but yeah, when you come here, there will be wonderful doctors here, and hopefully, you know, we will resolve that. And also different techniques and relaxation, uh, that will be put in place so you will be able to continue and, and learn the new pieces that— like Sibelius Concerto, absolutely. Now we, we're gonna finish our interview with a performance of you again, um, of Leclerc Violin Sonata No. 3. And this was Leclerc Violin Sonata No. 3. Okay, Natalia, so that was really lovely. There is also a fantastic recording of you performing the Bartók Romanian Dances, so we're gonna listen to them while we are we are finishing our interview to say goodbye. But first, I wanted to say thank you so much, Natalia, for being with us today and for, you know, sharing your experience and your wonderful career as a violin student and hopes for when you come here to the UK. Thank you so much, Stefania. It was great to talk to talk to you and to share with you my experience and my thoughts. So thank you. You're very welcome. You've been listening to Future Classic Women Awards on Women's Radio Station, live every day at 10 AM and 10 PM London time. And if you have any question that you would like to ask to our guest or nomination for our Future Classic Women Awards, please email presenters@womensradiostation.com or tweet us @WomensRadioSTN. And if you would like to listen to it again or catch up on our previous programs, you can head to the presenter's page, Stefania Passamonte, Future Classic Women Awards on womensradiostation.com. Again, thank you for listening. We are gonna finish our program with Natalia Zunisca performing, uh, balabatoc, uh, the Romanian dances.