Alexander Balanescu (violin) and Evelyn Petrova (accordion/voice)

Monday 26 May 2008
20.45, The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, London N16 8JH

The brilliant young Russian star on the international new music scene Evelyn Petrova (accordion and voice) is joined by the doyen of new music Alexander Balanescu (violin) to create a blend of structured, warm and heartfelt, hysterical and shrieking authentic Russian singing, hypnotising sadness, and Piazzolla-like driving rhythms. Source

Evelyn Petrova & Alexander Balanescu

Violin and accordion – fiddle and box, choose your own term – is a long established instrumental partnership in traditions from Eastern Europe to America’s eastern seaboard and beyond.
It’s a pairing that lends itself to expression and adventure as much as dance accompaniment and in this new century there are many examples of musicians who are creating daring yet accessible and communicative new music from buttons and bows. read more

 

Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky, Evelyn Petrova
Homeless Songs
© 2001 SoLyd Records (634479492464)

Accordion player and vocalist Evelyn Petrova and trumpet virtuoso Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky have released a striking album of jazz-like improvisations on Russian folk melodies. Read complete

 

 

 

Year's Cycle

All Music Guide ReviewPerhaps the most original recording of 2004 will be Evelyn Petrova's debut, Year's Cycle, on Britain's Leo label. Petrova hails from a small industrial village outside of St. Petersburg, and was trained classically at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. After graduation she studied free improvisation with the legendary Russian trumpet player and composer Vyacheslov Guyvoronsky. She plays in an ensemble with him and bassist Vladimir Volkov. Petrova's Year's Cycle is a solo recording, however. She performs 12 songs, all of them evocative of different regions of Russia and of each month in the year . Petrova's precision on the accordion is astonishing, as is her singing voice. Her songs range form wild and careening affairs that offer a muscular primitivism as well as a jazz improviser's sophistication. From screeching, groaning, moaning, and shouting to crooning, sweet, lullaby warbling, to clear-throated balladry, Petrova's voice is the other side of her voice; the accordion is the force which drives it, which caresses it, which soothes or agitates it. It is a confounding recording; it is at once accessible, intense, beautiful, moving, and jarring. It is so mercurial that the moment a listener feels she has latched on to its secret, it sprints out ahead and dares, in a delightful unpretentious way, the listener to venture forward a bit more. The sheer wildness and untamed naturalism of Year's Cycle makes it the first recording of truly "new" music in a very long time to come from Europe. There is no staid theory behind the sounds here, and no "art for art's sake" either. This is music rooted in the earth that reaches for the heavens without apology. It communes with the spirits because it comes from the body; it is informed by the mysterious nature of land itself. It's unlike anything you've ever heard before and it is brilliant, mad, and beautiful. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Evelyn Petrova and Alexander Balanescu
Upside Down
Leo Records CD LR 489
It's taken accordionist/singer Evelyn Petrova quite a while to find a suitable duo partner with whom to record a follow-up to her previous Leo recording, Year's Cycle, but in Romanian violinist Alexander Balanescu she has proved that wait was worthwhile: his contributions to her music are at once subtle and powerful, his swooping, earnest, occasionally almost ethereal violin providing a highly effective contrast to the more 'human' sounds of her instrument, in either its rhythm-section role or in solo flights.

Petrova's music is more deeply rooted in folk dance rhythms than that of, say, Richard Galliano, and her vocal effects are utterly original whether she's floating her voice over a vigorous rhythm ('Journey') or chattering with Balanescu over crowd noises ('Torn Dress'); overall, this is utterly personal but intensely communicative music, at times exhilarating in its straightforward freshness and vitality, at others (particularly in the album's most dramatic piece, 'Dream') taking on an almost brooding quality. An elegant, accomplished duo, playing wholly original music with passion and commitment.

Upside Down
Evelyn Petrova - Alexander Balanescu | Leo Records - distr. IRD (2007), Read review on Italian

The Vortex Jazz Club

Upside Down -by Petrova / Balanescu

The first solo CD by Evelyn Petrova on Leo Records (CD LR 395 - Year's Cycle) in 2004 created quite a stir. As soon as the CD was released she received numerous invitations to perform at big and small festivals all over Europe and Canada. For her second CD she wrote the music and invited one of the best violin players worldwide Alexander Balanescu to record it in St. Petersburg. The sound of accordeon and violin provide a perfect blend for her music which flactuates from beautiful sadness to flights of breakneck virtuosity. Both musicians add their voices on several occasions. An amazing duo is born.

 

Evelyn Petrova and Alexander Balanescu
Monday 26 May
Their Leo album Upside Down was one of the most distinctive and original recordings of 2007, a heady mix of lively, folkish rhythms and keening melancholy vocals, and such pleasing contrasts also characterised the duo performance – their first at the Vortex – of Russian accordionist/singer Evelyn Petrova and Romanian violinist Alexander Balanescu.

The first set began with Balanescu playing a couple of self-composed studies for solo violin, in which his extraordinary virtuosity was deployed initially to explore polytonality (he adds plucked left-hand notes to his bowing at suitable moments) and subsequently to experiment with the instrument's percussive possibilities, but the meat of this performance was provided by the clear musical rapport that has been built up between him and Petrova since their first encounter in London in 2005.

She, like him, is an undoubted virtuoso on her instrument, which – especially when blended with her affecting vocals – produces a plethora of sounds composed of joyous runs, dramatic gasps and brooding musing, and together they produce a mesmerising range of musical textures and moods, some to be found on the above-mentioned album, some new compositions.

Petrova also performed solo, mining traditional music for plaintive vocal laments or celebrating the characteristics of the seasons (on this occasion, suitably, portraying May), but it was their utterly distinctive combination – whether exuberant or contemplative – that rendered this gig so special.

http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/

 

FESTIVAL DES MUSIQUES INNOVATRICES Aussi a` l’aise dans la verve et la volubilite' de l’improvisation que dans une approche classique plus pose'e, l’accorde'oniste et chanteuse de St Petersbourg EVELYN PETROVA est en passe de devenir la coqueluche de bon nombre de festivals qui se l’arracheront comme ils se sont arrache's SAINKHO NAMTCHYLAK et IVA BITTOVA avant elle. Nous saisissons pour l’heure l’opportunite' d’une de ses rares venues a` l’Ouest et sommes heureux de vous la faire de'couvrir. Tendre, ensorcelant, universel son chant puissant parle au coeur de chacun. http://www.musiquinno.fr http://www.o rkhestra.fr/catalog.php?FIND=LR395

 

VIDEO

http://vidslib.com/index.php?view=3337195

 

INTERVIEW avec EVELYN PETROVA

Interview par Sabine Moig

 

Year's Cycle (Leo)

by Matthew Sumera, September 2004

Accordion player and vocalist Evelyn Petrova, former student of and collaborator with trumpet virtuoso Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky, has released a striking solo statement in Year's Cycle, twelve pieces devoted to the months of the year. These are folk-like pieces intermixed with vocals (ranging from lyrical statements to the most extreme histrionics) and founded upon extraordinary accordion technique and improvisational skill.

As the album is meant to be heard as a continuous piece, a meditation on the calendar year and the significance of season change in Russian society, singling out moments seems a bit misleading. There is a natural flow throughout the CD from one piece to the other, detailing a compelling sequence with distinct character. With that said, there are certain pieces that feel more familiar, more song-like, and will most easily resonate with a new listener.

"December" is a beautiful song with lyrics originating from, as the helpful liner notes point out, the Pskov region. It is filled with constant sustain from accordion, with sinewy passages in the upper register throughout. Petrova's vocals are at their most obviously lyrical here, eschewing her vocal extremes until the end of the piece. It's a wonderful introduction.

"January" is filled with vocal percussive effects and lightening fast runs, with the primary theme a swinging 6/8 time dance. It is a compilation of songs from the Novgorod region. April is "The Lullaby", also in 6/8, addressing the time of Lent. It's a more vocally reserved piece (except for something resembling the sound of crickets at the very beginning of the piece) than many of the others, featuring a compilation of songs from the Moscow region.

June is an instrumental, subtitled "Promenade". It's a showcase for Petrova's remarkable accordion technique, highlighting a preference for constantly shifting tempos. Followed immediately by the growling vocal introduction to "July", it's an interesting juxtaposition. Were "June" feels traditional, "July" (at times) would even frighten Marilyn Manson.

"November" rounds out the disc with some more energetic singing, sometimes a bit too brittle and affected. The accordion again is almost beyond critique, with some truly inspired playing. The sustained scat-like vocals will test even the most experimental of ears.

Year's Cycle is yet another remarkable project from Leo, and endless thanks must go to Feigin and others for searching out and documenting this music. At times beautifully, stunningly played, the end impression is one of a master musician who has a love for the traditional music of her country, extended improvisational techniques, and the full range of extended vocal sounds. Probably of limited appeal (the vocal quirkiness grates after awhile) but certainly not lacking in interest.