Nina Shatskaya

Nina Shatskaya
Nina Shatskaya
Background information
Birth name Nina Arkadyevna Shatskaya
Born 22 April 1971 (1971-04-22) (age 40)
Origin Rybinsk, USSR
Genres jazz, Russian romance
Occupations singer, actress
Years active 1999–present
Website ninasong.ru

Nina Arkadyevna Shatskaya (Нина Арка′дьевна Ша′цкая, April 22, 1970, Rybinsk, USSR)[1] (1966 or 1972, according to other sources)[2][3] is a Russian singer and actress, best known for her unique jazzy take on the Russian romance heritage. Staying out of spotlight, Nina Shatskaya is held in high regard by critics and colleagues. According to composer Nikita Bogoslovsky, "Next to our pop 'legends' she is a true queen: lonely and untouchable".[4] Nina Shatskaya released seven well-received albums and was designated Meritorious Artist of Russia in 2004.[5]

Contents

Biography

Nina (Ninel) Shatskaya was born in Rybinsk, daughter of a well-known Soviet jazzman, singer and conductor Arkady Shatsky.[6] It was in in his band Raduga (Радуга, Rainbow)[7] that she's made her singing debut. A strict disciplinarian (who for many years was unmilling to support her ambition to become a professional singer) in retrospect, proved to be a perfect mentor and all-round major inspiration.[8] Later she remembered:

I was a kind of homely girl, liked to knit and sew. Besides, I was overweight. All this irritated him immenslely: he was sure this way I'll turn out fat, lazy and stupid. He criticised me mercilessly but somehow managed to shape me up with this criticism. I was eager to prove I was worthy of his praise.[9]

After graduating school Nina couldn't decide which college to join and Arkady Shatsky, by way of reprimand, sent her to a workers' settlement nearby an agricultural factory to work for one year as a club administrator.[10] "That was where I learned what does the word 'rural cultural life' mean, trying hard to get some Indian films for our workers, painting billboards and organising parties", she later remembered.[9] A year later Nina moved to Leningrad and enrolled to Humanitarian University's Management department.[11] At some point she joined the Music Hall Studio School and graduated both collages. She remembered feeling 'uncomfortable' and rather lonely in Leningrad.[9] "While my girl friends were busy courting men, I spent all evenings in Conservatory or Philharmonics", she recalled.[12] Yet she remembered warmly several years spent at the Leningrad Music Hall. "Teachers there were fantastic, and performers were all individuals, each cultivating their own manner...", she recalled.[13] Having moved to a Moscow Music Hall, she studied vocals in Gnesyn Academy, in the Natalia Andrianova's class,[14] making miscellaneous recordings with orchestras for the Russian TV and radio.

In 1986 the family suffered a heavy blow. At the hight of Gorbachov-induced 'economy crimes witch hunt' (by which the Soviet music sphere was hit hardest) Arkady Shatsky was arrested and convicted to five years of hard labour for some alleged financial wrong-doings[15]

He simply disappeared. Mother and me, we couldn't find out where they'd kept him. Mother was being continuously insulted <at work>, then got fired. Many 'prominent' Rybinsk men who'd always been proud to have us as friends, now were shying us... The flat was searched upside down: they hoped to find some huge money deposits, apparently, but found only huge vinyl record collection which was father's one and only item of luxury.[9]
At Yaroslavl Philarmony.

Arkady Shatsky returned home after being amnestied six months later, but the once internationally famous Raduga orchestra was now finished. "I realized that from then on I was supposed to make my own decisions. The firm parental wall that propped me up all of a sudden was in ruins", Nina remembred.[9]

In 1999 Nina Shatskaya went to the USA with a view to record her Russian romances programme.[3] "Investors hoped that would be some kind of a romance revival. They wanted to make a high-budget product with leading Russian poets and composers participating. But producer <Maksim Dunayevsky>[9] decided to make it a pop record and since I've never been keen on pop music, the project flopped", she later explained.[16] The recorded material has been taken back to Russia but was never released.[9] She said she felt desperate. "I was well aware that the material recorded have been primitive and had nothing whatsoever to do with what I've been dreaming of. I felt like I'd been given one single chance and squandered it", she later admitted.[13] The American experience lasted six months and was not altogether negative. Later Shatskaya remembered warmly her Afro-American tutor she's been studing with, as well as vocal coach Seth Riggs. "When I first came to him, he was jovially dismissive of the Russian vocal school. Having heard me, he was impressed and said I've got brilliant technique, for which I have to thank Natalya Andrianova", the singer recalled.[13]

Nina Shatskaya's repertoire changed drastically after she met Zlata Razdolina, a Saint Petersburgh composer experimenting in a modern Russian romance genre.[17] The immediate result of this collaboration was the musical version of Anna Akhmatova's Requiem, sung by Shatskaya backed by the State Cinema Orchestra. (Razdolina and Shatskaya's ways parted but years later they met again for another Akhmathova-themed project.) All this led to a series of successful recordings. The debut Game of Love (2000, part of the Romance's Golden Mine series) later gave title to an expansive concert project with the Russian Orchestra, directed by Boris Voron.[18] It was followed by The Lady of Romance (2002) which brought the singer to the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall for the first time. Arkady Shatsky, who was present at the rehearsal, remarked: "At last my dream came true. You've become the way I've always hoped you'd be". He went back to Rybinsk hoping to promote his daughter's concerts there but died several days later, aged 66.[9] On November 4, 2002, still mourning her father's death, Nina Shatskaya gave her triumphant gig at the Tchaikovsky's, performing songs from Music of Love set (Russian romances in part 1, American song classics and movie standards in part 2).[3]

Nina Shatskata in Tchaikovsky Concert Hall

By this time the singer have simplified her stage name, from Ninel to Nina. "It was utterly absurd: officially I'm Ninel, but everybody was always calling me Nina, both at home and at school. You see, I was born on April 22[19] and my parents, true Communists, christened me this way, as Lenin in reverse. As I began performing professionally, people started asking: 'Why would you want this silly decadent nom de plume?' Well, now I can attest: changing name, one changes one's whole life. Now as 'Nina' I am certainly less mannered and pretentious," she said.[20][21]

In the mid-2000s she started to perform at elitist events (The 2nd Moscow Ball in Vienna, Russian Seasons in Kitzbühel, shows in Russian embassy in Finland, some foreign embassies in Moscow), frequently guesting Russian film festivals (Zerkalo, European Window and Amur Autumn, among others).[3]

By this time she’s been collaborating with some well-established ensembles, including the State Symphony Cinema Orchestra (conducted by Sergei Skripka), Moscow Symphony Orchestra (Vladimir Ziva), Russian President Orchestra, Karlovy Vary Orchestra.[3] In 2004 Shatskaya presented her From Romance to Jazz concert programme on the Svetlanov's Hall stage of the Moscow House of Music. This year she was designated Meritorious Artist of Russia.[10]

In 2005 Shatskaya's third album Emerald (Изумруд), recorded in concert on March 13, 2005, at the Helikon Opera, came out as part of the Autumn Triptych concert series.[22] The album's material, arranged starkly for piano and voice, was premiered at the Moscow's International House of Music, accompanied by Natalya Bayurova.[23]

It was followed by Song of Happiness (2005), part two of the same project, recorded with Anatoly Silin Orchestra, and later this year, Jazz Mainstream, a collection of musicals, jazz and pop standards (including George Harrison's "Something" cover) recorded at the Moscow International House of Music.[24] In October 2007 Nina Shatskaya performed at her father's fifth year memorial concert held in Rybinsk.[25]

TV Park magazine / Zephir album sleeve.

In the early 2009 Shatskaya released her 6th album Zephir, the music of which she defined as 'romanso-jazz, implying "romance in a jazzy arrangement but with genre code well kept, without any improvisational parts".[26] Asked of the album's titled, she explained: "In those times when most of Russian romances have been written, 'zephir' was the word for a warm, light nightly breeze. Warm melancholy arrangements prompted me this association".[13]

Later in 2009 the Sorceress album was released, a collection of Zlata Razdolina's romances based on Anna Akhmatova's poetry and arranged for Sergei Skripka's orchestra by Dmitry Userdov.[3] Infatuation with these poems went back to Shatskaya's early student days when she'd got "all soaked with Akhmatova's poetry", she explained.[13] The same year she was awarded the Order of Sergei Diaghilev foundation "For contribution to and development of the Russian culture", specifically, for the Aknmatova song cycle.[27]

In October 2010 the Remembering Sun (Память о солнце, originally titled Sorceress) poetry-and-music theater production was premiered at the Moscow House of Music. Directed by Yulia Zhenova and based on Anna Akmatova's poetry (music written by Zlata Razdolina) it featured Nina Shatskaya and actress Olga Kabo, "two Nature’s elements, two unique women… recreating images of the lost Past, <of those times> when Love was sacrificial and for a woman a dream of happiness itself proved something impossible and doomed", according to the press release.[28][29] The Remembering Sun production continued successfully throughout the Spring of 2011.

On May 24, 2011, a new and extended version of Shatskaya's From Romance to Jazz concert programme was presented at the International Moscow House of Music, linked to the Zephir album's Melodia re-issue and featuring Olga Kabo, composer Aleksander Pokidchenko and pianist Yuri Rozum as special guests.[30]

Career in films

Nina Shatskaya appeared in two films, Vadim Derbenyov’s On the Corner, By Patryarshy’s (2001, starring Nikolai Karachentsov) and later in Gleb Panfilov’s In the First Circle (2006) based on Alexander Solzhenitsyn's classic.[3] Panfilov wrote a small role exclusively for the singer so as to let her use her vocal gift.[12] Having seen the singer at one of the private parties stage, he later approached her and asked if she knew an obscure romance called The Evening Ends (Уходит вечер), was pleasantly surprised to know that she did and included this number in the film.

Style and influences

The Game of Love concert.
External videos
Don't Leave Me Now (Не уходи). Nikolay Zubov's classic performed by Nina Shatskaya in Moscow International House of Music.

Nina Shatskaya cited her father Arkady Shatsky, the Rybinsk-based jazz-orchestra Raduga's leader as her first and major influence. Among her favourite artists, she mentioned Nina Simone, Billy Holiday, Lara Fabian, Diana Krall and Norah Jones.[26] There's been a different set on influences too, like Elena Obraztsova, whom young Shatskaya worshipped as 'goddess'.[12]

Nina Shatskaya's intent on merging musical Russian romance with jazz caused some controversy among purists. Even her fan base is still divided: some argue she's a natural-born jazz diva, others insist she is to concentrate on Russian classic and forget about the American jazz.[26] "When I first started doing <this jazz-romance crossover thing> there wasn't a single person who wouldn't tell me I shouldn't do this... Nowadays this new, jazzy way of singing a romance is regarded generally as something quite natural. Nobody's even aware of how just several years ago such thing was deemed nonsense", Nina Shatskaya said in a 2011 TV Kultura interview.[17] Music critics treated her experiments with much respect. Teatral magazine described the singer as "a lonely traveller who'd chosen for herself a thorny path". "Having devoted herself to romance, she is not massively popular, but she's formed her own, intelligent and intellectual audience", the critic wrote.[13] Many praised her "wide-ranged voice, exquisite sensitivity and good taste in choosing the material".[10]

Shatskaya herself claimed she never cared much for this genre classification routine. "People don't recognize a genre behind my singing. Its not to me that they listen, but to their own selves", she once remarked.[31] "My aim is not to shake my listener up, just tell a story and then hope this story helps a person to bring up in memory something intimate and important", she said in another interview.[23] According to the singer, one is not supposed to sing romance seriously, though: irony here is most essential. "Not sarcasm, but irony. Like - 'those were the cruel times, when I've so lost my heart, but those were good times, too'. The audience should not suffer in the theater. Not drama or tragedy, but pleasantly sweet melancholy is what they are to carry with them", she argued.[23] Far from being self-important, she's open to criticism and uses it construstively. During the recording of the "Emerald" track in the Lenkom Theatre Studios a small episode proved to be decisive for the overall sound of the album. Actor Aleksander Abdulov, passing by, remarked: "You sing of an Emerald as if it were a cobble-stone". This fleeting comment made deep impression upon the singer: she changed her approach completely and later cited this incident as a "crucial, if casual lesson".[23]

There's been another twist to Nina Shatskaya's stylistic experiments in the late 2000s. She's got interested in approaching Russian folklore and described this new development as ‘most exciting’.[26]

Private life

Remembering the Sun. Saint Petersburgh, 2010.

One of Nina Shatskaya’s better known boyfriends have been Italian photographer Franko Vitale, best known for his collaborations with Fellini, who in the late 1980s came to Russia and fell in love with her, then a Mosconcert stuff singer. He proposed to her but she refused.[10] Vitale made more than 1.000 photo portraits of Shatskaya which started later to appear in Italian magazines. This caused a wide-spread rumour that she worked as a model[32] in Italy which she's adamant she never did.[10]

Characterised variously as "unassailable", "haughty" and "self-willed",[10] Nina Shatskaya describes her family as "my mother and my brother <Dmitry> with his family". She's never been married and is being pestered continuously by the press, as to why. "This 'lack of love' - it does upset me, yes, but one has to agree that feisty, energetic and emotional men are very few while others bore me", she remarked in one interview, adding: "In relations I prefer to keep distance. Otherwise, I am quite open and very sociable person".[13]

Nina Shatskaya's list of hobbies include exotic traveling (South America, Easter Island, etc.), diving and photography, her works much appreciated by the Russian Geographical Society.[33]

Discography

  • Game of Love (Игра любви, 2000, Romance's Golden Mine series)
  • Lady of Romance (Леди-романс, 2002)
  • Emerald (Изумруд, 2005, live; Autumn Triptych, part 1)
  • Jazz Mainstream (2005, live; Autumn Triptych part 2)
  • Song of Happiness (Песня о счастье, 2005, live with Anatoly Silin Orchestra; Autumn Triptych part 3)
  • Zephir (Зефир, 2009)
  • A Sorceress (Колдунья, 2009)[34]

References

  1. ^ "Нина Шацкая". vipartconcert.ru. http://vipartconcert.ru/exclusif/shackayn.html. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  2. ^ "Нина Шацкая". www.kino-teatr.ru. http://www.kino-teatr.ru/kino/acter/w/star/27351/bio/. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "Нина Шацкая. Биография". Сайт Русский шансон. http://russianshanson.info/?id=997&attr=1. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  4. ^ О Нине Шацкой. - www.ninasong.ru.
  5. ^ Указ Президента РФ от 19 июля 2004 г. N 932"О награждении государственными наградами Российской Федерации"
  6. ^ "Нина ШАЦКАЯ, певица: МОСКВУ ЗНАЮ ЛУЧШЕ ЛЮБОГО ТАКСИСТА". Москвичка magazine. http://moscvichka.ru/News/?p=646. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  7. ^ According to http://www.sevkray.ru/news/3/31639/ the band's 1983 Melodia album sold 100.000 copies in the USA and garnered good reviews in the American press.
  8. ^ http://www.ninasong.ru/start.html От первого лица / From the First Person.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Vera Ilyukhina. "Нина Шацкая в журнале Story". ninashatskaya.com. http://ninashatskaya.com/2011/05/02/%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D1%88%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F-%D0%B2-%D0%B6%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5-story/. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  10. ^ a b c d e f "Я нацелена на жизнь…". www.sudarushka.su. http://www.sudarushka.su/index.php?aid=1597. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  11. ^ Tatyana Khoroshilova. Зимние романсы "Снегурочки" . www.rg.ru
  12. ^ a b c "Нина Шацкая влюблена в святого - Современная - Правда.Ру". www.pravda.ru. http://www.pravda.ru/culture/music/modern/28-01-2006/75037-shazkaja-0/. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  13. ^ a b c d e f g "Нина Шацкая:. "Музыка стала гарниром"". Театрал. http://www.teatral-online.ru/news/1756/. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  14. ^ "Нина Аркадьевна Шацкая". avaxhome.ws. http://avaxhome.ws/music/jazz/Nina_Shatskaya.html. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  15. ^ Among 'crimes' he'd been accused of 'stealing 100 litres of State-own spirit' was mentioned. Shatsky himself never denied, though, that he had to use all of his entreprenerial abilities to provide the band with the best equipment and modern instruments (like synthesizers), which he did, in the times when much simpler things were in 'deficit' and were supposed to be 'procured' rather than legally bought. See his last interview at http://www.sevkray.ru/news/3/31639/
  16. ^ "Нина Шацкая: "Музыка стала гарниром"". Театрал Magazine. December 18, 2008. http://www.teatral-online.ru/news/1756/. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  17. ^ a b "Nina Shatskaya in the Private Time programme". TV Kultura. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbThaFIBDog. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  18. ^ «Игра любви» – романсы и русские песни Нины Шацкой. msk.classica.fm. - December 3, 2009.
  19. ^ Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's birthday
  20. ^ Olga Shablinskaya Романса светлая грусть. AIF, 2005.
  21. ^ It was then that she started to get confused with Taganka actress Nina Shatskaya (Leonid Filatov's widow) who by this time had started singing on stage, too. The latter now performs as Nina Shatskaya-Filatova.
  22. ^ Нина Шацкая. Изумруд.
  23. ^ a b c d "Романса светлая грусть". www.peoples.ru. http://www.peoples.ru/art/music/shatskaya/. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  24. ^ Nina Shatskaya. Jazz Mainstream.
  25. ^ "Вечер памяти композитора Аркадия Шацкого прошел в Рыбинске". www.jewish.ru. http://www.jewish.ru/news/cis/2007/10/news994254385.php. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  26. ^ a b c d "Нина Шацкая. Интервью.". www.dni.ru. http://www.dni.ru/culture/2009/2/13/159444.html. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  27. ^ http://www.ninasong.ru/images/315_koll15.jpg
  28. ^ О.Кабо и Н.Шацкая. "Память о солнце".
  29. ^ "Память о Солнце". www.privatetheatre.ru. http://www.privatetheatre.ru/content/olga-kabo-pamyat-o-solntse. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  30. ^ Московский Международный Дом Музыки (Театральный зал) Нина Шацкая с программой "От романса до джаза". - www.jazzparking.ru.
  31. ^ "Нина Шацкая". Огонек. http://www.ogoniok.com/4977/25/. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  32. ^ Из манекенщицы - в певицы. - www.kleo.ru.
  33. ^ Nina Bashenova Интервью с Ниной Шацкой. - www.rgo.ru.
  34. ^ Дискография. www.ninasong.ru.

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