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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
For pianist Vadim Neselovskyi, Ukraine war adds urgency to his most personal work
During his first few years in the United States, as a virtuoso2 pianist and composer studying at the Berklee College of Music two decades ago, Vadim Neselovskyi was often asked about his origins. "I would say, 'I'm from Odesa,' or even 'I'm from Russia,' " he recalls, "because nobody knew what Ukraine was."
His evocative new solo piano suite3, Odesa: A Musical Walk Through a Legendary4 City, enters the world at quite a different moment. Mostly recorded in 2020, long before the current Russian invasion, it's an elegant love letter to his father, a Ukrainian Jew who was dying of cancer as Neselovskyi composed the music. Because it's also a portrait of the culturally rich city of his youth, currently the target of a Russian naval5 blockade, the album has other reasons to resonate in a poignant6 key.
Neselovskyi was born in Odesa, the Southern Ukrainian port city, one month after the 1977 Constitution of the Soviet7 Union was ratified8 by the Communist party under Leonid Brezhnev. "I grew up basically in a dictatorship," Neselovskyi tells NPR, speaking over video from his mother's home in Dortmund, Germany, where his family moved when he was 17. His early life in Odesa, a cosmopolitan9 city on the Black Sea, had shaped his foundation as a classical piano prodigy10. "Waltz of Odesa Conservatory," a piece on the new album, recalls his experience as the youngest student in that institution's venerable history.
As he settled into life in the west, Neselovskyi began to understand the freedoms, both civic11 and creative, that he had never known. By the time he arrived at Berklee, he was as serious about jazz improvisation12 as he was about classical composition. His synthesis of those two elements, at that stage in his development, instantly caught the ear of Gary Burton, an illustrious vibraphonist who was Berklee's Dean of Curriculum at the time. Burton, a former child prodigy himself, came up in the 1960s alongside future piano titans Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett. Even against that imposing13 yardstick14, he says, Neselovskyi stood out: "He's able to drift back and forth15 between classical and jazz more seamlessly than anyone I have heard before."
Burton formed a group around the considerable talents of Neselovskyi and several other Berklee students at the time: guitarist Julian Lage, bassist Luques Curtis and drummer James Williams. This quintet released a 2005 album, Next Generation, under Burton's name. When I caught the band at Birdland the following year, I took note of Neselovskyi's delicate touch at the piano, along with his deft16 hand as an arranger.
At the time, Ukraine was in the midst of a groundswell of democratic protests known as the Orange Revolution. Neselovskyi was paying close attention from afar, and he noticed that others were, too. "I remember, I had a duo concert with Esperanza Spalding at the Sony Center in New York," he says, "and at the reception, that was the first time that people were saying: 'So, you're from Ukraine.' I started to realize that Ukraine is becoming something more than just this obscure post-Soviet Republic, you know? And then I started coming to Ukraine regularly, and I saw that my friends were experiencing something very new — this feeling that democracy means having something to say about the way the country is going."
Neselovskyi continued his studies at the Thelonious Monk17 Institute for Jazz Performance, working with mentors18 like Terence Blanchard and Herbie Hancock. And he amassed19 other prominent admirers — like Fred Hersch, who produced his 2013 solo piano album, Music For September, declaring him "one of the greatest pianist/composers out there right now."
By that time, Neselovskyi had established a deeper relationship with his homeland, as well as a position on the piano faculty20 at Berklee. When Russia invaded and annexed21 Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014, he recalls, "I happened to have a student at Berklee whose father is the main opposition22 journalist in Ukraine. So I would get the news firsthand. And my God, I really got involved." He sees this as the moment "where I perhaps really became Ukrainian."
Neselovskyi's new suite reflects this heightened cultural identification, sometimes in autobiographical terms; a piece titled "My First Rock Concert" is about precisely23 that, incorporating a scrap24 of melody by the Russian rock star Viktor Tsoi, whom Neselovskyi saw as a teenager in Odesa's Shevchenko Park. Elsewhere the references are less personal, as in "Potemkin Stairs," a frenetically humming composition inspired not only by the landmark25 stairway in Odesa but also the iconic sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin.
Another piece, "Odesa 1941," evokes26 a moment with chilling parallels to our own. "Back in 1941, Odesa was occupied by Romanian troops under the guidance of the SS, the Nazis," Neselovskyi says. "And now the city has been attacked from the other side — but the feelings, the emotions are the same. The only difference is that we were looking at black-and-white photography, and now we're looking at the video footage." He brings this conflict to life with a thunderous sweep of atonal27 explosions at the piano, tapering28 off to an eerie29, decaying calm.
As a Ukrainian watching horrific events unfold over the last several months, Neselovskyi felt the understandable urge to go home, take up arms and join the fight. "Then I realized that by playing one concert and sometimes raising 50,000 euros, I can do more than I would as a very inexperienced soldier," he says. Neselovskyi has donated the proceeds from his new album and concert revenue to humanitarian30 relief in Ukraine. Since the war began, he has performed dozens of benefits in the United States and in Europe, where his bookings have ranged from jazz clubs to churches to refugee centers. "Everywhere, Ukrainian refugees always came to me with tears," he says. "Because for them, this was the music about what they just experienced."
As a result of his commitment, Neselovskyi has raised north of $100,000 and counting, all before the album's release this Friday. It's a remarkable31 sum for a jazz pianist to contribute, but he's aware of how dire32 the need is, and will continue to be.
"I know that it's 'before' and 'after' for me right now," he says. "It might as well take basically the rest of my life — and processing what's happened will take all of us the rest of our lives, I think."
Vadim Neselovskyi will perform on Friday at the Salmagundi Club in New York, and on Saturday at the David Friend Recital33 Hall in Boston; see his website for details.
1 transcript | |
n.抄本,誊本,副本,肄业证书 | |
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2 virtuoso | |
n.精于某种艺术或乐器的专家,行家里手 | |
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3 suite | |
n.一套(家具);套房;随从人员 | |
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4 legendary | |
adj.传奇(中)的,闻名遐迩的;n.传奇(文学) | |
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5 naval | |
adj.海军的,军舰的,船的 | |
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6 poignant | |
adj.令人痛苦的,辛酸的,惨痛的 | |
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7 Soviet | |
adj.苏联的,苏维埃的;n.苏维埃 | |
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8 ratified | |
v.批准,签认(合约等)( ratify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9 cosmopolitan | |
adj.世界性的,全世界的,四海为家的,全球的 | |
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10 prodigy | |
n.惊人的事物,奇迹,神童,天才,预兆 | |
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11 civic | |
adj.城市的,都市的,市民的,公民的 | |
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12 improvisation | |
n.即席演奏(或演唱);即兴创作 | |
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13 imposing | |
adj.使人难忘的,壮丽的,堂皇的,雄伟的 | |
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14 yardstick | |
n.计算标准,尺度;评价标准 | |
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15 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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16 deft | |
adj.灵巧的,熟练的(a deft hand 能手) | |
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17 monk | |
n.和尚,僧侣,修道士 | |
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18 mentors | |
n.(无经验之人的)有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的名词复数 )v.(无经验之人的)有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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19 amassed | |
v.积累,积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20 faculty | |
n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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21 annexed | |
[法] 附加的,附属的 | |
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22 opposition | |
n.反对,敌对 | |
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23 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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24 scrap | |
n.碎片;废料;v.废弃,报废 | |
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25 landmark | |
n.陆标,划时代的事,地界标 | |
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26 evokes | |
产生,引起,唤起( evoke的第三人称单数 ) | |
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27 atonal | |
adj.无调的 | |
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28 tapering | |
adj.尖端细的 | |
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29 eerie | |
adj.怪诞的;奇异的;可怕的;胆怯的 | |
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30 humanitarian | |
n.人道主义者,博爱者,基督凡人论者 | |
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31 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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32 dire | |
adj.可怕的,悲惨的,阴惨的,极端的 | |
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33 recital | |
n.朗诵,独奏会,独唱会 | |
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