Nina Shatskaya

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

Nina Arkadyevna Shatskaya (Russian: Нина Аркадьевна Шацкая, 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 the spotlight, 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] Shatskaya has released seven well-received albums and was designated a Meritorious Artist of Russia in 2004.[5]

Biography

Shatskaya was born in Rybinsk, the daughter of Arkady Shatsky, a well-known Soviet jazz musician, singer and conductor.[6] It was in his band Raduga (Радуга, Rainbow)[7] that she made her singing debut. A strict disciplinarian (who for many years was unwilling to support her ambition to become a professional singer), he proved in retrospect to be a perfect mentor and all-round major inspiration.[8] Later she remembered:
I was kind of a homely girl; I liked to knit and sew. Besides, I was overweight. All this irritated him immenslely: he was sure this way I'd turn out fat, lazy and stupid. He criticised me mercilessly but somehow managed to help me shape 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 go to, so Arkady Shatsky, in order to teach her a lesson, sent her to a worker's settlement near an agricultural factory to work for one year as a club administrator.[10] "That was where I learned what the word 'rural cultural life' meant. I tried hard to get some Indian films for our workers, painted billboards and organised parties", she later remembered.[9] A year later Nina moved to Leningrad and enrolled in the Management Faculty at the Humanitarian University.[11] Later she attended the Music Hall Studio School, graduating from both. She remembered feeling 'uncomfortable' and rather lonely in Leningrad.[9] "While my girl friends were busy courting men, I spent all my evenings in the Conservatory or the Philharmonics", she recalled.[12] Yet she remembered warmly the years she spent at the Leningrad Music Hall. "The Teachers there were fantastic, and the performers were all individuals, each cultivating their own manner...", she recalled.[13] Having transferred to the Moscow Music Hall, she studied vocals at Gnesyn Academy, in the class of Natalia Andrianova,[14] while also making miscellaneous recordings with orchestras for Soviet TV and radio.

In 1986 the family suffered a heavy blow. At the height of the Mikhail Gorbachev-induced 'economic crimes witch hunt' (by which the Soviet music industry was hit hardest) Arkady Shatsky was arrested and convicted, and sentenced to five years of hard labour for alleged financial wrongdoing. One of the crimes he'd been accused of was the theft of 100 litres of State-owned alcohol. Shatsky himself never denied, though, that he had had to use all of his entrepreneurial abilities to provide the band with the best equipment and modern instruments (like synthesizers), in the times when such items were in short supply and had to be 'procured' rather than legally bought.[15]
He simply disappeared. My mother and I couldn't find out where they'd taken him. Mother was continuously insulted [at work], and then got fired. Many 'prominent' Rybinsk men who'd always been proud to have us as friends now shied away from us... the flat was searched and turned upside down: they hoped to find a large sum of hidden money, apparently, but only found the huge vinyl record collection which was my father's one and only item of luxury.[9]
Shatskaya at the Yaroslavl Philarmony.

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

In 1999 Nina Shatskaya went to the USA with a view of recording her Russian romances.[3] "Investors hoped that there would be some kind of a romance revival. They wanted to make a high-budget product with the participation of leading Russian poets and composers. 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 was taken back to Russia but never released.[9] Shatskaya said this made her feel desperate. "I was well aware that the material we recorded had been primitive and had nothing whatsoever to do with what I'd been dreaming of. I felt like I'd been given one chance and had squandered it", she later admitted.[13] Her American experience lasted six months and was not altogether negative. Later Shatskaya remembered warmly the Afro-American tutor she'd studied with, as well as her 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 had brilliant technique, for which I have to thank Natalya Andrianova", the singer recalled.[13]

Shatskaya's repertoire changed drastically after she met Zlata Razdolina, a Saint Petersburg composer experimenting in the modern Russian romance genre.[17] The immediate result of this collaboration was the musical version of Anna Akhmatova's Requiem, sung by Shatskaya and backed by the State Cinema Orchestra.[18] (Razdolina and Shatskaya soon parted ways, but years later they met again for another Akhmathova-themed project.) All this led to a series of successful recordings. The debut album Game of Love (2000, part of the The Golden Mine of Romance series) later provided the title for an expansive concert project with the Russian Orchestra, directed by Boris Voron.[19] It was followed by The Lady of Romance (2002) which brought Shatskaya to the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall for the first time. Arkady Shatsky, who was present at the rehearsal, remarked: "At last my dream has come true. You've become the woman 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, Shatskaya gave her triumphant engagement at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, performing songs from the Music of Love set (Russian romances in part one, American song classics and movie standards in part two).[3]

Shatskata at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall

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

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

By this time she was collaborating with some well-established ensembles, including the State Symphony Cinema Orchestra (conducted by Sergei Skripka), the Moscow Symphony Orchestra (Vladimir Ziva), the Russian Presidential Orchestra, and the Karlovy Vary Orchestra.[3] In 2004 Shatskaya presented her From Romance to Jazz concert programme on the Svetlanov Hall stage of the Moscow House of Music. She was designated a Meritorious Artist of Russia the same year .[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.[23] The album's material, arranged starkly for piano and voice, was premiered at the Moscow International House of Music, accompanied by Natalya Bayurova.[24]

It was followed by Song of Happiness (2005), part two of the same project, recorded with the Anatoly Silin Orchestra, and later that year, Mainstream Jazz, a collection of musicals, jazz and pop standards (including a cover of George Harrison's "Something") recorded at the Moscow International House of Music.[25] In October 2007 Shatskaya performed at her father's fifth year memorial concert held in Rybinsk.[26]

In 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 the genre code well kept, without any improvisational parts".[27] When asked about the album's title, she explained: "In those times when most of Russian romances were written, 'zephir' was the word for a warm, light night breeze. The album's warm melancholy arrangements prompted this association".[13]

Later in 2009 the album Sorceress 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] Her infatuation with these poems went back to Shatskaya's early student days when she'd gotten "all soaked in Akhmatova's poetry", she explained.[13] That same year she was awarded the Order of the Sergei Diaghilev Foundation "for contribution to and development of Russian culture", specifically for the Akhmatova song cycle.[28]

In October 2010 the poetry-and-music theater production The Remembering Sun (Память о солнце, originally titled Sorceress) was premiered at the Moscow House of Music. Directed by Yulia Zhenova and based on Anna Akmatova's poetry (with music written by Zlata Razdolina) it featured Nina Shatskaya and actress Olga Kabo, "two of 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 proved something impossible and doomed", according to the press release.[29][30] The production of The Remembering Sun 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 guest performers.[31]

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 novel The First Circle.[3] Panfilov wrote a small role exclusively for the singer so as to allow her to use her vocal gift.[12] Having seen the singer at one of the private parties back-stage, he later approached her and asked if she knew of an obscure romance called The Evening Ends (Уходит вечер), was pleasantly surprised to find out that she did, and included this number in the film.

Style and influences

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

Shatskaya cited her father Arkady Shatsky, the leader of the Rybinsk-based jazz-orchestra Raduga' as her first and most important influence. Among her favourite artists she mentioned Nina Simone, Billy Holiday, Lara Fabian, Diana Krall and Norah Jones.[27] There was a different set of influences too, like Elena Obraztsova, whom the young Shatskaya worshipped as a 'goddess'.[12]

Shatskaya's intention of merging Russian musical romance with jazz caused some controversy among purists. Even her fan base is still divided: some argue that she's a natural-born jazz diva, others insist that she should concentrate on Russian classics and forget about American jazz.[27] "When I first started doing <this jazz-romance crossover thing> there wasn't a single person who wouldn't tell me not to do this... Nowadays this new, jazzy way of singing a romance is regarded generally as something quite natural. Nobody's even aware now of how just a few years ago such a thing was deemed nonsense", Nina Shatskaya said in a 2011 TV Kultura interview.[17] Music critics have treated her experiments with much respect. Teatral magazine described the singer as "a lonely traveller who'd chosen a thorny path "for herself. "Having devoted herself to romance, she is not widely popular, but she's formed her own, intelligent and intellectual audience", the critic wrote.[13] Many have praised her "wide-ranged voice, exquisite sensitivity and good taste in choosing material".[10]

Shatskaya herself claimed that she never cared much for the 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.[32] "My aim is not to shake my listener up, but just to tell a story and then hope that this story helps a person to bring up in their memory something intimate and important", she said in another interview.[24] According to the singer, one is not supposed to sing romance seriously, though: irony is most essential. "Not sarcasm, but irony. Like – 'those were the cruel times, when I 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 should carry with them", she argued.[24] Far from being self-important, she's open to criticism and uses it constructively. 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 a deep impression on the singer: she changed her approach completely and later cited this incident as a "crucial, if casual lesson".[24]

There was another twist to Nina Shatskaya's stylistic experiments in the late 2000s. She became interested in Russian folklore and described this new development as 'most exciting'.[27]

Private life

One Shatskaya's better known boyfriends was Italian photographer Franko Vitale, best known for his collaborations with Fellini, who came to Russia in the late 1980s and fell in love with her, then a Mosconcert stuff singer. He proposed to her but she refused.[10] Vitale made more than a thousand portraits of Shatskaya which later appeared in Italian magazines. This caused the widespread rumour that she worked as a model[33] in Italy, which she's adamant that she never did.[10]

Characterized variously as "unassailable", "haughty" and "self-willed",[10] Shatskaya describes her family as "my mother and my brother <Dmitry> and his family". She's never been married and is 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 relationships I prefer to keep my distance. Otherwise, I am quite open and a very sociable person".[13]

Nina Shatskaya's list of hobbies include exotic traveling (South America, Easter Island, etc.), diving and photography; her works have been greeted with appreciation by the Russian Geographical Society.[34]

Discography

  • Game of Love (Игра любви, 2000),
  • Golden Mine of Romance, 2001
  • Lady of Romance (Леди-романс, 2002)
  • Emerald (Изумруд, 2005, live; Autumn Triptych, part 1)
  • Mainstream Jazz (2005, live; Autumn Triptych part 2)
  • Song of Happiness (Песня о счастье, 2005, live with the Anatoly Silin Orchestra; Autumn Triptych part 3)
  • Zephir (Зефир, 2009)
  • Sorceress (Колдунья, 2009)[35][36]

References

  1. ↑ "Нина Шацкая". vipartconcert.ru. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  2. ↑ "Нина Шацкая". www.kino-teatr.ru. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 "Нина Шацкая. Биография". Сайт Русский шансон. 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. 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. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 Vera Ilyukhina. "Нина Шацкая в журнале Story". ninashatskaya.com. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 "Я нацелена на жизнь…". www.sudarushka.su. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  11. ↑ Tatyana Khoroshilova. Зимние романсы "Снегурочки" . www.rg.ru
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 "Нина Шацкая влюблена в святого – Современная – Правда.Ру". www.pravda.ru. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 "Нина Шацкая:. "Музыка стала гарниром"". Театрал. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  14. ↑ "Нина Аркадьевна Шацкая". avaxhome.ws. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  15. ↑ Shatsky interview – http://www.sevkray.ru/news/3/31639/
  16. ↑ "Нина Шацкая: "Музыка стала гарниром"". Театрал Magazine. December 18, 2008. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Nina Shatskaya in the Private Time programme". TV Kultura. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  18. ↑ Fragment of Requiem (Youtube record)
  19. ↑ «Игра любви» – романсы и русские песни Нины Шацкой. msk.classica.fm. – December 3, 2009.
  20. ↑ Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's birthday
  21. ↑ Olga Shablinskaya Романса светлая грусть. AIF, 2005.
  22. ↑ It was then that she began being confused with the 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.
  23. ↑ Нина Шацкая. Изумруд.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 "Романса светлая грусть". www.peoples.ru. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  25. ↑ Nina Shatskaya. Jazz Mainstream.
  26. ↑ "Вечер памяти композитора Аркадия Шацкого прошел в Рыбинске". www.jewish.ru. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 27.3 "Нина Шацкая. Интервью.". www.dni.ru. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  28. ↑ http://www.ninasong.ru/images/315_koll15.jpg
  29. ↑ О.Кабо и Н.Шацкая. "Память о солнце".
  30. ↑ "Память о Солнце". www.privatetheatre.ru. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  31. ↑ Московский Международный Дом Музыки (Театральный зал) Нина Шацкая с программой "От романса до джаза". – www.jazzparking.ru.
  32. ↑ "Нина Шацкая". Огонек. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
  33. ↑ Из манекенщицы – в певицы. – www.kleo.ru.
  34. ↑ Nina Bashenova Интервью с Ниной Шацкой. – www.rgo.ru.
  35. ↑ Дискография. www.ninasong.ru.
  36. ↑ Sorceress, lyrics by Anna Akhmatova, music by Zlata Razdolina (posted by Nina Shatskaya on Youtube)

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