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american, Arts and Entertainment, beautiful, Ella Fitzgerald, Ethnic Russian music, Folk music, indie, indiemunity, Manhattan School of Music, music, portfolio, russian, Sasha, sasha papernik
Sasha Papernik’s 2013 bilingual epic Victory is unparalleled in its aesthetics and musical elegance. A successful fusion of Russian folk, classical and contemporary musical art, and jazz, Victory encapsulates the beauty of folklore and fairy-tales across history as well as drawing from the best of musical traditions; including opera, cabaret and musical theatre.
Papernik is a first generation Russian-American, based in New York and graduated from the Manhattan School of Music having studied classical piano. Classical and operatic influences are passionately imbued inPapernik’s music, with trills and riffs in the piano evocative of composers of the Romantic era, namely Rossini, Grieg and Beethoven, and the artistic flair of the Impressionists – Debussy and Ravel.
Intermingled with this strong influence of high culture, is the sentimentality and rusticity of traditional folk music – Papernik’s lyrics, song structures and motifs within the music is especially evident of pan-European folk music, with sounds suggestive of English, Irish, Scottish and French folk, parent genres to American country, which is also featured.
Most impressive however, is Papernik’s use of the Russian language and Russian folk music, inter-woven within this Western presentation of music. Slavic musical motifs are the most striking, and very much complement the aspects of cabaret and musical theatre also brought to the table. Papernik’svocals are jazzy and inspired, similar to the velvet like Ella Fitzgerald and the character of Billie Holliday. What makes her voice so enthralling is her ability to take on a character within a song, with melodies characteristic of the kind heard in a Sondheim/Bernstein musical.
The song Victory is an impassioned, sultry ballad, telling the story of a forsaken lover, made collateral damage by her partner’s various conquests – “You sold me your heart for all my kisses, was I just a victory to you?” The piece is ageless and elegant, made so by the swelling and elegant string orchestra, and the swing driven rhythm section, combined with Papernik’slounge goddess vocals. Comparably, Kiss Me Fast is musically derived from a Billie Holliday improv, and lyrically by a love note left in a fan book at a concert.
“… I imagined what the girl must have been thinking when she wrote it. I wrote the whole song immediately – it played like a film in my imagination.” The song resonates as an emotional cry, made intense by the jazz orchestra.
Solitude is a moving and honest original work, with a bass line sampled by the bass line from “Habanera,” from the opera Carmen. The subject matter is contrastingly sadder than the teasing and playful Habanera, and the song as a whole is tender in its simple and inspired arrangement.
The beautifully sorrowful Tonkaya Ryabina is a re-interpretation of the Russian folk song of the same name. Bittersweet, and positively Chekhovian, the folk song depicts the impossible love between a “delicate” ash tree and an oak tree, divided by a river. The ash wishes to move to the oak, but realises that to be cut down and moved means to die, and never swaying in the wind again. The ash realises that she “must sway alone for eternity.” The preceding track, Whispering Tree, is a translation of the folk song, and performed upbeat and happily, in spite of the tragic story.
Sasha Papernik’s third album Victory is a playful and Romantic exploration of genre, successful, elegant and poised in its fusion of folk, jazz and opera. Orchestrated to flawless standard, and enchantingly evocative of classic Victorian opera and New York Jazz, it is, in a sense, victorious in its purpose.
Spring 2014 will see Sasha Papernik live at Carnegie Hall, as part of the Musical Explorers Series. Connect with Sasha:
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Review by Audrey Isabella
Date Published: 23/4/13
Café Grade Poetry 