In the decades since Ukraine gained independence, music has played a vital role in shaping and expressing a modern sense of national identity. This has been especially visible in the creative ways artists have drawn from the country’s folk traditions—adapting village songs, instruments, and motifs into new genres that resonate with contemporary audiences. Whether through […]
Skryabin (Скрябін) is an alternative pop band from Novoyavorivsk (Новояворівськ), Ukraine. Proceeding through many stylistic changes throughout its long career, from rock and punk, through synth-pop and techno, to more standard pop-rock ballads, the band’s artistic trajectory is normally divided into two periods: old (pre-2003) and new (post-2003 to 2015) Skryabin. Formed in 1989 by […]
Vopli Vidopliassova (Воплі Відоплясова) is a critically acclaimed Ukrainian rock band from Kyiv. Formed in 1986, the band’s unique blend of punk, folk, jazz, rock, and ska with traditional Ukrainian elements has won them international renown. To date, the band has toured extensively throughout much of the former Soviet Union, much of Western Europe, Israel, […]
Iryna Bilyk is a highly celebrated Ukrainian singer/songwriter and entertainer from Kyiv. Mainly a composer of ballads and dance pop, she has released albums in her native Ukrainian as well as Russian and Polish. Her impressive commercial success in Ukraine, fueled in large part by her ability to adapt to the changing popular music landscape, won […]
Mieczysław Szcześniak is a highly prolific Polish singer and songwriter. A trained jazz musician, he has explored a large variety of popular music styles throughout his almost 30-year career on the Polish music scene. From singing standard pop ballads to mixing Caribbean rhythms with Slavic folk harmonies, Szcześniak has garnered wide critical acclaim in his native Poland […]
Buranovskiye Babushki (Бурановские Бабушки) is a long-running traditional folk choir from Buranovo, Russia. They sing predominantly in their native Udmurt language, a subgroup of the Uralic language family, which also includes Finnish, Hungarian, and Estonian. Formed in 1968 in an effort to preserve the local singing traditions, the group came to national prominence 40 years later […]
Janek Samołyk is a singer-songwriter from Wrocław, Poland. He’s worked as a solo artist since 2008, singing in both English and his native Polish. His compositions tend to be heavily influenced by ’60s-era British folk and pop and modern indie rock. Although a relatively young artist, Samołyk has recorded three full-length albums to date, achieved critical […]
Artur Pirozhkov (Артур Пирожков) is a stage name—one of many—for entertainer Aleksandr Vladimirovich Revva (Александр Владимирович Ревва). Of Estonian ancestry, his family immigrated to Donetsk, Ukraine, where their last name was eventually Slavicized to Revva (from Erwa). His father, a renowned mathematician and professor in Donetsk, and his mother separated when he was fairly young. He […]
Staisha is the stage-name for one Nastya Aleksandrina (Настя Александрина), a Moscow-born hip-hop, reggae, and R&B singer/songwriter. Trained as a singer from a young age, she would go on to graduate from the Gnessin State Musical College, where she studied jazz and pop vocal styles. Although she began her career as a backup singer for […]
Roads Change Color (Дороги Меняют Цвет, or ДМЦ) is an alternative Russian-singing folk-rock band from Poltava, Ukraine. Originally a two-piece group composed of vocalist Andrey Grechanik (Андрей Гречаник) and guitarist Sergeу Starostenko (Сергей Старостенко), the band has since expanded to include a keyboardist, bassist, drummer, and, for a brief period prior to her tragic death, a violin […]
Olga Arefyeva (Ольга Арефьева) is a Russian singer, published poet, dancer, theater actress, and educator. Born in a small town (Verkhnyaya Salda/Верхняя Салда) outside of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in 1964, she—along with her band, The Ark (Ковчег)—has released a staggering 18 albums since the early 1990s and composed more than 400 original songs. She is […]
Dantes and Oleynik (Дантес и Олейник) were a Ukrainian dance-pop duo; they met in 2008 while competing on a reality TV/music competition in Ukraine called Star Factory 2 (Фабрика Звёзд–2). They quickly became friends on set and continued to collaborate beyond their television experience. In 2010, they recorded their one and only studio album, I’m Already […]
