Interview
Announcement: An amazing composer whom I call one of the greatest modern classical composers of our time. He hails from the Ukraine, and if you haven't heard his music yet, you are missing out on some of the most beautiful and haunting instrumentals of the 21st century.
Though you live in the Ukraine, you are old enough to remember living when it was part of the USSR, and a Super Power. Truth is for many, life has changed, and not continually for the good. What are your feelings on the fall of the USSR, and what has it done to your life?
Yes, the fall of the Soviet Union changed the lives of hundreds millions of people. For better or for worse? There is no uniform answer to this question but it's only true that it has changed our lives cardinally. And times of changes are always very difficult times! Most of the values have changed; you must start a new life!
In those days I thought that I can practice what interested me. I dreamed to become a professional rock musician but... I was forced to do what allows having at least some money. That was chaotic times :) I was a seller in a bazaar, an unemployed, a radio DJ, a copywriter... My last work was a marketing manager of a big Ukrainian network of filling-stations.
But I don't think that this time has been spent in vain because it has given me knowledge of a life, people, and has made me wiser. It has pushed me to return to music and to do such music which I'm composing now.
I read that you have been composing and arranging your own music since 2006. But while under the USSR Regime, did you have music training? If not, where did you learn how to become the composer and the instrumentalist you are now?
I made my first steps in the music when I was 11. I was invited to a children's brass band where I played on trombone within 5 year. I can't say that this was a serious musical education. We were taught a minimum in order to play some soviet patriotic marches on parades. But nevertheless at that time I saw an orchestra from the inside, listened to parties of different instruments and this has had a great influence on me.
After that I started to study by myself a bass-guitar and the music theory and played in various local rock groups within some years. I played with some good musicians and it really was my becoming as a musician.
I read in your blog that you where looking for a female vocalist, did you find one?
I had this idea. But although I got almost a hundred proposals of cooperation from all parts of the world I've abandoned this idea at this stage. Why? First of all I've realized that it's very difficult to work over Internet. But I'll be back to it in the future.
On a personal level, I do not think you need a vocalist. I see and feel that your music is modern classical, and not meant for vocals. Have you ever thought of that possibility? Do you realize that you can be a new generation of Classical Music composers along the lines of the greats like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven?
Yes, those tracks you heard were conceived as instrumental ones and I also think that they don't need any vocal. But I could compose good songs if I'd have somebody with such vocal as, for example, Sarah Brightman's or Tarja Turunen's ones.
I noticed you have the same music influences that most Americans and many others in the world are raised with. At what age did you discover bands like Deep Purple, The Doors, Alice Cooper, and the rest?
This happened when I was about 14 years. My older brother returned from the military service and he often listened with his friends to bands such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc. And because we had a common room I was forced to listen to this also :) Oh, I hated them at first (at that time I was a big fan of Italian pop)! ...The first I've liked was "Balls to the Wall" of Accept.
When you make music, what feeling washes over you? Is it calm, and freeing, like it is for most artist of any type, Painters, Artists, Writers, Actors, etc?
Rather when I make my music I'm controlled by ardor. I like to find exactly those notes that best express my thoughts and to put them on their places.
But in general my music is an escape from the real world for me. I don't know how other musicians but I like to listen to my music because I make it primarily for myself. And when I listen to it it's calm and freeing.
I read some comments, and replies to your blogs saying that the titles to your songs where very dark, and maybe depressing. Maybe that it so, however I just find the composition beautiful, sometimes haunting and always perfectly arranged. Where do you come up with the names, and why do you think you give the compositions such dark titles, when the music is not really dark, but rather melodic and moody?
I don't think that the titles of my compositions are dark, at least not for me.
For example, "Night Drops" is my memories. When I was a child I liked to go into the yard at night in a grandmother's village. The complete silence was around. I raised my face up to the sky and was feeling breezy wind. Little drops of rain were falling... There was such impression that the world has just been created.
Because of our language barrier we are keeping this interview on the short side. But I do believe that the language is international. I have listened to music in Spanish, Japanese, French and other languages several times, and have connected to it on some level. Do you believe that music is one of the most international barrier breaking mediums of art?
Yes, I believe
Thank You Vadim