I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o'clock in the morning and Mesdames les Muses have learned to be on time for that rendezvous.
Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
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| Magic hands :) |
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Start.
I attempted my first improvisations when I was 7-8 years old, but I wasn't encouraged by my mum (who was also my teacher), she thought it would distract me from the classical music.
I wrote my first songs when I was 12-14, they were pop-ballads, it was my first "rebellion" against classical...
That's also when I started interpreting famous songs in different styles, reharmonizing most chords.
When I discovered more about jazz at the age of 16 - I have started developing my own style straight away, writing my first instrumental piece that I called "Art No 1". (The next 4 "arts" followed shortly).At 17 I wrote "Pavana" (which appears on my debut album "The Girl With the Flaxen Hair. Continued..." - you can listen to it here:
"Pavana" on Youtube). But still, in those years I was more focused on being a singer-songwriter and I wrote an incredible amount of songs from the age of 16 to 21, sometimes I would write 3-4 songs a day. I remember I used to travel a lot by trains in those days - and I wrote many songs on the train just looking at the passing landscapes...
Maturing.
When I started working abroad at 22 - I was very focused on developing my jazz skills and I didn't write that much anymore, spending more of my time learning American Songbook.
I abandoned classical music almost completely and only rarely played some popular compositions on request, preferring to focus solely on learning and performing jazz standards.
There were only a few instrumental tunes that I wrote in those years - two of them are on my CD - "The Circus of Life" and "Autumn" - check them out on youtube:
"Circus of Life" (video) and
"Autumn" (Live) .
I really got back to writing piano compositions when I first came to the UK quite a few years ago and I was encouraged by a library music composer Jimmy Kaleth, who spotted my talent straight away.
That's when I wrote "Dark Angel" (
"Dark Angel" short animated film ) and a few other tunes that are still making their way into my future scheduled albums.
I kept writing a little when I went back to work on a cruise ship. I played in a place called Observatory - it had glass walls and while playing piano I could see all the beautiful sights.
That's how "Norwegian Fjords" and "Dolphin's dance" were born.
"Norwegian Fjords" video and
Dolphin's Dance (live)
Writer's Block.
After getting back to London, I got a writer's block that lasted for about 3 years and it was quite scary for me, coz I felt that I wanted to write, but nothing was "coming out".
At this time I was listening to a lots of great music performed by my amazing colleagues, fantastic London musicians and they kept telling me to write, but I struggled. Now, looking back at it, it felt more like having an "incubation period" for my new style that was already conceived and needed some time to stay "inside" before it was born.
I was encouraged by my musician friends to check back to my classical roots and play some Debussy and maybe even improvise on it.
(they did notice that my style of improvisation had a lot of classial influence and they encouraged me to develop it).
I first rejected the idea, but later started renewing my knowledge of some classical pieces and realising that I'm missing that part of my life.
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| I love this Yamaha piano. |
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Writing.
At the time I was getting lots of education in psychological and coaching techniques and I've been applying them (on my own and with the help of my collegues) in an attempt to start my creative flow once again.
And it worked spectacularly.
One day my writer's block got "lifted" and my ability "came back with the vengeance".
I started writing on a completely new level, developing my own style that eventually earned me compliments from my colleagues, such as: "a composer in a class of their own", "unique style with classical influence", "updating 20th century harmonies with the touches of jazz" etc.
That's when I wrote the rest of my debut album "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair. Continued...".
It took me a while to decide if I want to develop my career as a composer-pianist or a jazz singer-pianist and after a very long consideration I decided to go with my composition first, preferring to put my "jazz side" on the back burner for now. I still do get to play a lots of jazz gigs, mostly with my special interpretations of jazz standards, but when it comes to how I see myself and my career - I consider myself a composer/pianist.
Style and influences.
How would I describe my style?
Now I call it CLAZZ, but that definition didn't come to me till 2011.
At the beginning I'd consider myself polystylic - if you break it down - you'll see bits and pieces of many things that 20th century had to offer.
There's first of all - impressionism, then a slight bit of romanticism, an obvious link to modernism and postmodernism (a bit of minimalism), and of course jazz and, maybe, new age (whatever they mean when they say "new age music" :)).
For a while I setteled in "contemporary classical" and neoimpressionism category.
Sometimes my compositions are stylistically different even withing one project.
But I presume, they are kept together by my overall personal style of writing and performing.
I currently write a lot and I keep referring to classical form more and more, whilst keeping the content to other styles.
So, overall, I'd say - CLAZZ is the best definition for what I do.
I'm now greatful that I endured many years of classical music education, because it seems to me that all that knowledge is deeply embedded into my subconscious and I never have to think about harmony or theory, the music seems to flow improvisationally, while still keeping the structure.
I like "breaking the rules" of classical harmony, so I often go for a dissonance - so favoured by the famous modernist composers.
Alfred Schnittke once said "My goal is to bring together serious music and light music, even if I break my neck doing so".
Well, I would not go as far as that, but I can certainly relate to what he was saying (and doing).
I have more harmonically complicated compositions and light compositions within the same project or I even combine a simple form with some unusual harmonies within one composition, so I guess in this way, I'm slightly similar in my idea to what Schnittke was talking about.
I guess, in my youth I was mostly impressed by Debussy, Ravel, Chopin, Skryabin, but the 2 greatest influences on me were Shostakovich and Schnittke.
People have been also saying that I'm similar in style to Erik Satie and Ryuichi Sakamoto, but I have to admit, that I found out about them only couple of years ago, so they didn't have any bearing on my development of the composition style, although surely I can see the similarities, which is a nice surprise because I fell in love with their music straight away. Even though they are separated by the century.
2009.
I was happy to release my debut album "The Girl With The Flaxen Hair. Continued..." which I can play solo, duo and trio (I arranged it for piano, viola and soprano sax/clarinet).
I hold this album dear to my heart and never get tired of playing it.
I released it with Sheet music book.
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| My book on a stand of my Yamaha P90, which I adore |
It contains all the album compositions and 2 bonus pieces that are quite complicated.
You can take a look at my book here:
http://www.evelinadelain.com/sheetmusic.php
Meanwhile, I had written 3 more albums in 2010.
One is an ambitious project called
"Seasons and places" in which I was inspired by Tchaikovsky's idea of a piano cycle dedicated to 12 months of the year.
Only I've taken it a step further and put each month in a different country.
So we have "August. Tango in Buenos-Aires", "September. Tokyo skies" or "January. En evening in Tchaikovsky hall, Moscow" and so on.
I have also extended it to 13 months - where 13th one is happening "En route to North Star".
(By the way, 13th month used to exist in roman times and was called "Undecember".)
The other album contains all the tunes that I deemed "simple" and it's not surprisingly called
"It's that simple".
It consists of piano/cello and vocal tunes that are not high brow at all and are very accessible. The albums are scheduled to be released in 2012-2013.
The third one was
"12 Colourful Preludes" (released in 2011 together with the book).
Click here to see Preludes videos
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| 12 Colourful Preludes. Artwork by A. Khrobostova. |
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How it all changed in 2011
It turned out to be the best creative year I've ever had in my life.
Firstly, after almost 12 years - I managed to return to classical music and surprisingly, I haven't lost most of my form.
I was fortunate to play 22 concerts around USA and Canada where I performed classical as much as my own music and it was all very well received.
Then, as I already mentioned, I finished production for my "12 Colourful Preludes" - digipack and the book and I'm very happy with it.
I was extreemely fortunate to work with an amazing artist who created all the artwork for this cycle, Alexandra Khrobostova,
check out her website, she's amazing!
In the middle of the year I started collaborating with a great viola player Katya Lazareva and I have arranged the preludes for piano and viola duo and we presented it at Schott Recital Room with great success.
Then I went on to write and arrange another cycle, this time - waltzes.
"Les Femmes Romantiques", it has 5 duo waltzes (piano and viola) and 7 trio waltzes (piano, viola and clarinet).
I can't be happier about collaborating with Karen O'Brien (clarinet/saxophone/flute player) who added so much to my music with her wonderful sound and amazing skills.
We launched an album in the very end of 2011 at the lively Christmas gig and it went better than we could ever hope. :)
Click here to see all the waltzes videos!
Overall, I'd say 2011 was the year of CLAZZ. :)
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| Example of my "geographical inspiration". :) |
Inspirations.
I've been analysing my music and I found it to be narrative in 99% of cases, i.e. depicting something. I'm greatly motivated by geography, many of my tunes are dedicated to various places. I've "drawn" cities and countries, I also talk about weather a lot - "sunny", "rainy", "autumn" etc. I like "painting pictures".
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| Fellini "I clowns" footage |
Then, there are concepts or people that I'm "depicting", for example, my new composition is called "Ryuichi" and is inspired by the personality of Ryuichi Sakamoto...Or my "Circus of Life" is inspired by meditating about "what is a meaning of all this" in an existential crisis kind of way. :)
My preludes are inspired by concepts of the Colour and Mood.
And the waltzes are inspired by impressions, photographs, memories, haiku etc.
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| My Jazz "persona" :) |
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Jazz.
I'm still keeping my passion for jazz and singing with a separate project that is called "Clazz. Volume one".
It's mostly arrangements of the very famous jazz standards but in a very unusual way.
It's still a secret so far and I don't wanna ruin a surprise yet, all I'm gonna say is that I'm very excited about it and I think i found a very clever idea that hasn't been overused. :)
You will probably start hearing bits and pieces from that project soon, but I'm looking to release it not earlier than in the middle of 2012, and it might be an orchestral project.
Things I've done from December 2009 till December 2011:
