Future Classic Women Awards – Lalita Melenchuk & Tatiana Zubova, Ukrainian War

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. Now, the Women's Radio Station is also a station about well-being and mental illness and above all about support in any direction. And today we dedicate this very special episode of Future Classic Women Awards to the war in Ukraine. And as guests, we have two fantastic students and professors of the London Performing Academy of Music. The London Performing Academy of Music is a music conservatory here in London, in the UK, and our students have been studying with us through our online platform every day despite the war. So we have with us Lalita Melenchuk, who is a postgraduate student, viola, from Ukraine, and Tatiana Zubova, who is a Russian student who currently lives in Switzerland. And I'm very pleased to welcome her here at the Women's Radio Station together with Professor Hanna Kubenko. Hello. Hello, nice to meet you all. Hello Lalitha and hello Tatiana, very happy to have you with us today. We know it's a difficult moment for everyone, we're all thinking of the situation every single day and night, trying to find a way to support you. And we want to today shine a light on your talent and on your music and the beauty of being together. So, Lalita, where are you right now? Hello, everyone. I'm from— now I'm in Ukraine, in Odessa. I'm studying in Kharkiv 7 years, and last time I need to go on for this because Kharkiv have not a good situation, and it's so scary, there are bombs, war, and everything that is happened. Yeah, so with Hannah, we were supposed to fly to Kiev last week for a wonderful festival at our partner conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Ukrainian Music Academy in Kiev, and we were supposed to meet you, Lalitha, and Tatiana. You would have both been performing at the festival with us. It would have been a week of master classes and concerts and we were really gonna go, gonna fly to Kyiv on Tuesday if they didn't cancel our flight from Switzerland and from the UK. Hanna, how— first of all, thank you so much for everything you've done so far. You've been in constant contact with our students and the professors as well that they are there in Kyiv, and It was very worrying, of course, to know about Lalita. We have Nadia, we have Ulyana that are students from Kharkiv and Kyiv being stuck under the bombing. How was, you know, teaching with them in these days? I must say the situation is— I must say maybe it's a little bit strange to say this, but I feel bombed to kind of in deepest platform. It's really, it's horrible. And I'm just happy to keep working, to do my work on every possible way I have. And our platform gives this possibility. And from beginning on, I was thinking that this is the future of our education. So yeah, it's really important to keep at least one kind of normality in life when things like this are happening. Yeah, well, Lalitha, you've been having a lesson almost every day with, uh, Hannah, and Hannah is Russian, is a Russian professor. And would you like to tell us about your feelings this very moment, the fact that through the platform you were able somehow to connect to a sort of a normality of an everyday life of having your viola lesson with Hanna, and the fact that through music we don't care about nationality, we care about music, we care about talent, we care about being together. Would you like to tell us how was it being in Karkiv and then managing to escape to Odessa? I think I'm very grateful for Hannah because she's telling every time you need to practice and, and I practice and play roller. I was so scared but I'm feeling that it will be all right because I'm doing something and don't cry, don't scare me what is happening around me. Where were you staying when you were in Kharkiv? Were down in the refugee or in the bunkers or you were staying at home? Yeah, yeah, I'm I don't go to Bunker, don't go for another places, and stay my home and get a purpose. I understand that at that moment more danger to go something and go to street and this more dangerous. More dangerous than staying at home. Oh wow. If I have internet, I'm calling Hannah or Wright that I have, now I can play, and she tell me, okay, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and we starting, I can play. Listen to. There are other people around me, when I play, and they don't care. They don't care. Because they hear you play. Yes, they think that it's one which happens every day, and this happens this time, and the other people That's incredible. It's absolutely wonderful. And also, you are, you know, to know that the neighbors as well could hear you practice, could hear your music, and somehow have some harmony despite what was happening in the street. And, but how is it, I mean, we as musicians, we have a very special responsibility, isn't it? Music It's a universal language and it's something that is made to connect with others. It's not something to divide us. And how responsible did you feel when the neighbors said that they liked the fact that you were playing and that would you play even more? You see what I mean? Thinking about them that that's not just for you, is also for the people around you. When I'm playing, I'm playing just for myself. And the— and now this which happens around me, it will be like something don't— what I don't understand. And then when I'm finished to play, I'm going to my neighborhoods and ask them and see that they have more. You know, I was wondering, as teacher, many times in my life before, while teaching, I'm teaching since I'm 14, and I have said so many times to my students and to my children as well, while you're practicing or doing something, You have to be focused on that what you are doing, no matter if a bomb is exploding just next to you. And I never could imagine that this will be that real, this thing what I was telling so many times. And actually my older daughter, she told me, you see, mommy, finally you can say this and someone will really know what does it mean. Absolutely. Well, how about we start listening the first piece of today that is going to be a performance of Lalitha in the Philharmonia Hall in Kiev. Yes, after she won the first prize from the Maestro competition in October. That was the time that we met, and then she became a student of Ed Pimont. So let's listen to this wonderful— it's a Ukrainian piece by a Ukrainian composer, Yuriy Ishenko, and is a full song called the Húsuli song. Wonderful. This was Lalitha Melenchuk performing an Ishenko folk song, the Hutuli Song. Wonderful piece and wonderful memories as well of being at the Lysenko Column Theatre. I was there 2012, I think I remember last time, 2010. I went there for the Horowitz competition, and Horowitz is my favorite pianist, born in Ukraine, pianist, but ex-Soviet Union, so Russian, and Russia and Ukraine has been you know, very connected artistically and culturally as well through classical music. And those are some of the most beautiful concert halls, and the musicians as well coming from there and schools. Tatiana is Russian. Tatiana Zubova is as well a postgraduate student at the London Performing Academy of Music studying with us from Switzerland. Tatiana, how are you? Hello everybody. Hi. I'm fine. Currently I'm in Bern, Switzerland. So still keeping playing. Keeping playing in your lessons with Hannah. And how If I can ask you, how is your family? Are they in Switzerland? Are they in Russia? Uh, well, my family all in Russia, uh, still staying, and I think they are not going to move because I don't know, there's a home place for them. Yeah. And currently I was in Russia as well one week ago, and I think I took the last last flight back to Switzerland before all connections were broken, like, I mean, flight connections. Now it's much more difficult to fly from Russia to Switzerland and as well back, like, from Switzerland to Russia. And I know you just won a wonderful place in a Russian orchestra in Russia, and that would have been a superposition among the first violins of the third biggest city in Russia. How do you see your future right now? Yes, actually this is funny because since long time I wanted to come home for holiday and I did, I think, everything during 10 days When I was at home, I was resting and as well I was practicing hard and as well I did this competition in Nizhny Novgorod. This city is very close to my city. My city is Vladimir, so this is just 2 hours by train and I know many friends of mine studied there in Nizhny Novgorod and as well I knew before this new main conductor of Nizhny Novgorod Opera, Dmitry Sinkovsky, because he studied as well in Moscow College of Music with my first viola teacher. No, don't be curious, Tatiana. And as well with Hannah's teacher, so we have the same, the same group, let's say, all of us. And so conductor. And I must say, as soon it happened with Ukraine, Dmitry Snikovsky took within 12 hours to make Lalita this job in the viola section too. And the theatre was extremely fast and they were doing unimaginable things to get her this job. So it was amazing. I will never forget this. It was so fast. It was just a Sunday a week ago. Yeah. On this day, everyone, the director of the theater, the music director, everybody was calling, hearing your video recording, just this one and the Bieber Pasakane, and giving you a job too. So, so much said to being said for this connections between all of us. Um, but also for, for them, I mean, Lalita is a wonderful musician, as is Tatiana, and I was very pleased that they would have had a job in the orchestra and they would have been able to maintain themselves while finishing their studies with the London Performing Academy of Music and Ju Hanna. And, um, and instead, of course, this, uh, this war is making— is breaking all, you know, future plans. And we were planning to go to St. Petersburg by the end of March for another wonderful— and to Moscow, yes, to do masterclass and concerts. And all connection has been broken as well there. And it's, it's awful how politics can forget about everything else. They just have their own agenda and, and they just go and break the dreams of, of, and the work, the hard work of people. Um, and, um, yeah, so I don't know what's gonna happen with that orchestra. We have also Sasha, um, Alexander Mayboroda, uh, that's for for the friends and for us becomes Sasha, who is one of the first violin of the Bolshoi Theatre. He was supposed to come to London to perform at the Royal Opera House with the Bolshoi Theatre and has been cancelled. And we are trying to organize a concert with Lalita Nikita, that is our other student in, um, Kharkiv who managed to escape to Odessa. We have Anton as well, that is our double bass student, we, um, from Ukraine. So we'll see if we can manage to, to get them to London and we can organize a big concert with everyone. But Sasha as well, he was very upset. Hannah, you can tell us about these, um, particularly when one of our younger students, she said she didn't want to study with him anymore because she— both of us basically, we were both upset have seen her posting stories that they will kill until the last of Russian. Teaching her, both of us, um, and also for, for her because she was absolutely the youngest student, uh, have organized the loan of the instrument and the bow for her. And French viola and all French bow, which was amount like, um, value of $35,000. And we were working hard to help her. And then it did upset myself too, because we are all adult enough and smart enough to understand that it's not about even nationality. This is not a national war. And it's— I don't know, did you read Archipelago Gulag by Solzhenitsyn, Stefania? No. So there was in the years of the Russian repressions, it was actually an island of the monastery, of the cluster, one of the oldest Orthodox clusters in Russia, of the country. And they have broken the cluster and made the hugest gulag for all the country and all the countries around, but especially Russia. So they have killed there between 1925 and 1948 Exactly there, over 30 million people. Mama mia! Millions of people were killed there. So this is something— this war is about this theme and not about any nationality or national diversity. This is exactly this what is the story about. And all repressions, and we have to be— we have a huge history in our countries, which is one huge history from the 9th of After Christus. And yeah, this is the next step of this. This is about the repressions. It's about, it's just about evil on Earth and not about diversity of national diversities. Absolutely. I mean, and in music orchestras. But you know, Sasha and I, we have, we have, we started already funny. I don't know, Tanya, do you remember? On the same masterclass as Tanya was in Switzerland, we had these two girls from Italy. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. And everybody knows Sasha and I, we are both Jews, for half at least, sure. So we are Jewish people. We are not religious, but we have a Jewish background. And these Italian girls came with the violins. And do you remember, it was a long masterclass. And I see the light is coming on the violin and I see a swastika on the violin. A big? No, red. Swastika. Yeah. And it was occasionally Peter Greiner, who is one of the best worldwide experts in the old violins, in every violin. Yeah. And I took the violin, I said, Sasha, do you see the same what I see? And she said yes. And I'm going to the kitchen to Peter Greiner and I say, Peter, is this a swastika? Peter, Jesus. Yeah, it's an old swastika from Mussolini time. And we were looking to each other and I'm, we are, I was so shocked you can't imagine. And I'm watching to these girls and they in a normal calm voice say, yes. 'Oh, it's swastika on my violin.' You know, the older violin. So, and I just, Jesus Christ, so that's funny. You are coming to us, to Russian Jews, for masterclass with the violin with the swastika. But that's the thing, you see. So they were looking at the instrument. They didn't care about the awful mark that was made on the instrument. No, no, no, the best thing that they knew that this is the swastika and then they said, but this is just a sign. And I say, not bad, not bad, not bad sign. Do you know what the sign means? Yeah, but who cares, she said to me. I say, yeah, actually everybody has to care. It doesn't mean that you can't buy violin from the Mussolini legacy, people who were in the support of Mussolini, but you have to at least know that you have it in your violin. And then Sasha Neves said, it's funny, and these guys are coming to us. Now the story keeps going. We have a student, both of us, who is posting she's going to kill every Russian until the last one. The truth is, you know, war is just making people to change their mind as well completely. It's breaking the dreams of the children and the dreams of the people. And you don't know what can happen to the brain. They're not thinking with the normal mind because they see horrible things around them. Yeah, they see horrible things. But what is the story about actually that it's so easy to forget that there is actually no Jews or Russians? Ukrainians or Christians, whoever, hell on earth, we are all the same people and we deserve absolutely same freedom, same life. And we all deserve a home, no matter what. And yeah, Alexander was upset about this story and I, me too, actually I was too because she's, she is had to be actually smart enough to understand that We are— we didn't kill anyone and never wanted to and wouldn't. And that's, uh, it's the same horrible problem for us, every one of us, as for them. Tatiana, did you receive— our country is destroyed, we are all destroyed, to the hell destroyed. And it's our work to build it up from ground zero. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, everyone is getting destroyed. Tatiana, did you receive any bad comment about the fact that you're Russian with your friends and colleagues in Switzerland? Well, at this moment, no, but I had one painful moment, let's say, when I went back from Russia to Switzerland. First days, I felt very tensed because I have really a lot of friends, Ukrainian friends here in Switzerland in different cities, already grown up, older than me. And I have as well friends in Ukraine who are currently now there. Some of them are in Kharkiv, some of them are in Kyiv, some of them are in Lviv. And First moment, I didn't know how to speak with them and how they react for us, for Russian people, and for me as well. I was worried, worrying about to lose the, this connection, this friendship. And yeah, I was calling to some people, to some friends who I thought might be neutral with nationality, and some of them, yeah, very, were very kind with me as always, like very open. But as well, I received like one message like, yes, you are, let's say, a good friend and I like you as always, but we hate Russian people. And this kind of double message, like, and currently now I'm still worrying about to lose some, uh, my good friends, uh, who I really love and with whom we played together, with whom we spend a very nice time. But yeah, I'm trying to don't ask too many questions and to be a bit more like in silence for this moment with them. I understand you, but you know, we don't need to be in silence. We need to talk. We need to talk to give a voice of all our Russians around who are not this thing. And never, never been this and we will never be this. So let's be, we don't need to. And Sasha Pitiliny is not with us now, but he said something very important considering the story with Ulyana that he is against of the collective responsibility. Why should we do this? Either we did attack anyone. We, we are not responsible for this, what is going on. But what we can do is we have to work against of this and show that we work together. We, we do everything for our students. We do everything what we can. Dmitry Sninkovsky in the theater in Nizhny Novgorod did it with his Lolita within 12 hours. So there are much more people which are great people in Russia, than this nightmare of a state of humanity. Well, let's listen to Tatiana performing Shostakovich's Violin Sonata, the third movement. And this was, um, Tatiana Zubova performing the third movement from the viola sonata by Shostakovich. So we heard Lalitha Malenchuk, our LPMAM student from Ukraine, at the moment in Odessa with the Ukrainian composer Yuriy Ishenko. And now Tatiana Zubova, who is our Russian student from LPMAM, performing the viola sonata by Russian composer Shostakovich. Funny enough, I mean, Shostakovich composed the sonata in a period very similar to the one we were living right now. You can hear the stillness of the not knowing the future and, you know, the oppression— pardon— the oppression of the regime. That is something that We are seeing at the moment as well with the fact that the communication have been stopped with the information from outside Russia has been blocked. But you know, there is little to block thanks to our platform. Our professor was teaching students in Ukraine, so Alexander knew what was happening in Ukraine. Ukraine and that he knew, you know, from seeing it with his own eyes. The technology today is really amazing because it's really allowing us to be connected despite the pandemic, despite the distance, and now even despite the war. So thanks to our platform, we can play together. It's not Zoom, it's called Sintonus, and it's allowing us to play together, to hear what's happening in the sound and also in the room. So, Hannah, how was it teaching Lalitha while, you know, things were happening in the street and you could hear the sirens? And it's, it's good for the sound, but also very strange, isn't it? It's like being there. Yes, that is. Um, but I'm really happy that we have this. I'm extremely happy that this is giving us the possibility to keep being ourselves, whatever is going on. And even maybe it's in a way is preventing of a global darkness. So as long we can be in touch, we can work together, we can figure out the possibilities of coming over and have some future. So I would gather, yeah. Future Together, Future at All, exactly this platform for all of us classical musicians around the world, is give us a possibility to fight for a future. Our future was on a game before war broke out and before the COVID was breaking through out. So our future of the classical music was in danger already many years before and especially now. It's proving itself as something what can give us a way to fight for our future. Yeah, absolutely. Lalitha, um, we're gonna listen, um, to another wonderful, uh, performance. We actually have the same piece as well from Tatiana. Um, we cannot play the two pieces together, and that's a pity because it would have been a wonderful duet. Um, so it's the Passacaglia by Bieber, the Guardian Angel it's called. Lalitha, what has been your favorite piece to play and to practice in these days? Now I'm practicing Bach Sonata, Violin Sonata No. 1, Adagio, and some Teaching, no, learning, for now. Today, Hannah say me that I need to play Capricious Bohemian and repeat it. I'm playing each maybe 5 months, every day. And you need to repeat and play now this pieces and another songs in practice. Wonderful. Well, you know, Lalitha, we cannot wait to hear you. I would say, I want to say thank you to Diana for your role of Shostakovich. Shostakovich is my favorite composer and my dream is play viola sonata, how I'm understanding and playing this music helps soul, the listener, to speak. I think it's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Olga. I want to say also about Shostakovich, about this piece, and about context with our time. I think this is a very good fit with our topic at this moment. And for me, it's also the, the theme of this sonata is this kind of internal voice, like, about humanity, about keeping being human, and about saying something very honestly, but, you know, without shouting. I, I see now a lot of demonstrations are going on, and of course Yes, we need all of them to pay attention to the situation, to react, to do something with all of this. But at the same time, sometimes we don't have to shout and don't have to go to this flow, like to this impulse of something very loud. Or something very demonstrative. Sometimes you have to know what you want to say, sometimes you have to know like what you have to do and to do this more calmly. I think this we also need in our time because to avoid the, you know, just the fact of show, somehow show demonstrations, but we also have to react and do something like privately and, uh, yeah, keep being humans. Absolutely, you could have not said that better. And on these words, we're gonna listen to the last piece of today that is The Guardian Angel. That is what we all need and we wish for Lalitha and our students in Ukraine and everyone really that is suffering by this war. And this was Biper Pasakalya, The Garden Angel, performed by the LP MOM students Lalitha Melanchuk from Ukraine. Thank you so much, Lalitha, Tatiana Zubova, and Professor Hanna Gubenko, for being with us today. Has been amazing having the opportunity to talk to you today on Future Classic Women Awards. Lalitha, we're all with you and we're all working hard to, to help you and Save you from this war. And, uh, thank you so much, Tatiana, for your wonderful music, and Professor Hanna for your work, um, every day with our students in Ukraine. And 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 would like to listen to it again or catch up on our previous programs, you can head to Stefania Passamonte Future Classy Women Awards on womensregistration.com. Thank you, Lalitha. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, Stefania, for everything. You're amazing. Thank you, girls. Great, both of you. Thank you, Hannah. Thank you, Hannah, for keeping giving lessons. To Stefania for coordination, for a lot of organizational stuff, and of course also for Lalitha, who I still don't know personally in life. But yeah, thank you for amazing music and performance. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Lalitha, best of luck with everything, and thank you all for listening.