New Voices: Sasha Magerova, Nani Eva, Kate Nova, and Laura Plenkina

Kate (Katya) Nova, Moscow

The following text concerns four young artistes on the Moscow jazz/R&B scene, their outlook and career paths. One would imagine that a cherished dream for most up-and-coming performers would be attention from the Russian national media and, on that note, it perhaps makes sense to start with Kate (or Katya) Nova. She comes from the medieval town of Vladimir, just over 100 miles from Moscow. Born in 1990 as Ekaterina Novozhilova, Nova has apparently been singing since childhood; it's precisely that youthful flair and useful address that have combined to bring her on occasion into the limelight of the capital.

At the age of seven she won a competition arranged by a nationally famous children's TV show. By her early teens she was garnering all manner of prizes at regional festivals, hoping to turn that early success into something longer-lasting.

We've been sleeping little and working lots...

The music business beckoned. Nonetheless, a connection in Russia between primetime popular music and a classical education is still fairly common - as something of a (positive) hangover from the Soviet years. Keen to avoid the brash shallowness of Western pop, Soviet artists - or cultural organizations - were always happy to see proof of proper training. As a result - and looking for similar endorsements - Nova was accepted into the prestigious Gnesin Academy of Music, specifically to study folk music.  

Kate Nova

A couple of years ago, she reached the semi-final of "New Wave" (Novaya Volna), the nationally broadcast talent competition, staged in Latvia and overseen by some of the biggest names in mainstream popular song. She continues to appear on a large number of radio stations domestically, both giving interviews and - in recent months - planning a debut album.

If television proves elusive, then musical theater offers a related sense of stability, not to mention a potential full house, night after night. On that score we might focus upon Laura Plenkina, who has been involved with the success in Moscow of an expensive and very grand musical "Monte Cristo." En route to that regular employment, some parallels can certainly be found between the fledgling experiences of Plenkina and Nova. Laura was raised on music from an early age and also managed to enter the extremely competitive Gnesin Academy. In fact, she currently offers vocal lessons in the halls where she once studied. That high standing within academic performance has led to vocal collaborations with several R&B or rap performers in Moscow. Prestige, as mentioned, can open the doors to pop.

Monte Cristo: the first Russian musical on a Broadway scale!

She considers herself to be extremely lucky in these ventures, yet still attributes any attained goals or milestones in her interviews to "destiny." Hard work helps, of course, but one might argue that it ultimately guarantees very little in a dog-eat-dog environment. Success, she consequently asserts, has come to her in ways that suggest the progress of an unhurried, though consistently blessed "tortoise..." 

Faster movement would be nice.

Laura Plenkina (Moscow), pondering a future purchase

It's this challenging, even frustrating relationship between desire, effort, and luck that makes the melancholy narratives of the jazz canon so appealing at times. Lachrymose citizens are in need of a shoulder - or a cocktail. And, lest local experience find insufficient expression in the songbook of English-language jazz, certain Moscow artistes will underscore with pride the fact they sing bitter-sweet tales of endurance in Russian. One such entertainer is Nani Eva, who emphasizes her preference for Slavic songwriting on a regular basis.

Instead of focusing upon the time-honored chronology of study, qualifications, and competitions, Eva tends to fashion her promotional materials with a different rhetoric. She speaks of her career in ways that are designed to escape the unforgiving pressures of Moscow, not battle them. "Nani has been practicing yoga for more than ten years - and teaching for over five. A delicate soul by nature, she finds that yoga and meditation have become ways of investigating actuality. Both from an internal and external [i.e., social] perspective." Reality is best engaged from a hushed (and safe) distance.  

Happiness is not a destination

The benefits of deceleration and distance are expanded to the genres for which Eva shows preference, too. A recent Moscow concert spoke of her jazzy playlist as follows: "There's rapid swing on display - with its syncopated rhythms. At first it might seem like the music will only get faster... but as soon as it slows down a tad, you'll feel a summer breeze roll through. And then we have the bossa nova, so light and unimposing, so bright and crystal clear. And there's always a little spice here, too! Enough to inspire real joie de vivre and the desire to dance...."

Nani Eva (Moscow)

That enthusiastic list continues, but we already notice how these styles are advertised as peerless - in other words as guarantors of the peace, calm, and consolation that's lacking outside the club. These are the sort of reassuring promises found in the repertoire of many young jazz artistes, such as Sasha Magerova, who moved to Moscow not long ago from the distant, frozen port of Severomorsk. As the administrative center for Russia's northern fleet, there's no logical or professional connection between Magerova's home address and the clubs of the capital. Perhaps for this reason, she advertises and advocates the same persona as Eva - that of a precious confidante. 

Magerova's lounge or downtempo aesthetic implies access to some "natural" sense of repose or escape. That escapism is effected - one hopes - through melancholy tales of private and therefore convincing experience. Audiences, by the same logic, are less likely to be swayed by tales of optimism. "Sasha Magerova's music is an invigorating jazz cocktail that'll warm you heart this winter season... Her songs are like sketches, taken from her personal life." Sketches from a famiiliar canvas. 

Prior to leaving her arctic home or offering sage advice to Moscow's browbeaten residents, Sasha Magerova admits to having spent the first seventeen years of her life "wondering what happens 'over there' in academic music circles." She pictured a distant, unattainable career from a snowy - and much quieter - location. While she, hoping against hope in Severomorsk, "dreamed constantly of entering a conservatory or of singing arias," she suddenly learned that her local choir had been invited to a Norwegian festival. Witnessing Scandinavian jazz musicians play live at the same event, Magerova realized that the stage meant more to her than study...

Sasha Magerova (Moscow) and colleagues

Just like Nani Eva, so Magerova tends to speak of jazz as a metaphorical freedom made unlikely by the daily grind. "The main thing is to keep a sense of peace and calm. After all, anything can happen in this business..! Your equipment might break down; flights get delayed; and you can certainly lose your voice all of a sudden...."

Then, as with Plenkina, we hear - as a result of these hassles or hurdles - that success again tends to be viewed in terms of luck. Rational planning and predictable outcomes are rare indeed. "When I see how generously God has sent me helpful, kind people, then my heart skips a beat from gratitude! 

The main thing is a sense of peace and calm. Anything can happen in this business...

Magerova remembers one moment in particular when the gap between daily life and music was felt especially strongly. "Many years ago, my parents sent me off to a summer camp on the northern seashore. Our group was - to put it mildly - a pretty rough bunch of kids... Being an 'A' student at school, I didn't exactly get a lot of respect from the other children. But then the tragedy happened with the 'Kursk' submarine - and I felt inspired to write a song. It was simple, but really honest in tone. After that I started to write more sad songs - about love, generally speaking. That was how I won the other kids over. The girls started crying in their pillows - honestly!"

Sasha Magerova

Love is a subject for sadness, The smallest social unit struggles to endure - and audiences gain comfort from hearing of others in the same predicament.

Mere entertainment, in the wake of these minor, yet ubiquitous pressures, is slowly replaced by the need for solace and support. The biographical sketches of all four women indicate that audiences want fleeting respite in a world where professional success - even for the diligent! - is often interpreted as good luck or divine intervention. Within these same four lifelines, the most powerful of anecdotes concerns an amateur, yet heartfelt song that counters the spitefulness of "hooligan" children... That audience is won over with a disarming tale of love and loss, the two emotional states best known to all present, it seems.

Happiness is found in simple things

As Magerova recently said in an interview: "Happiness is something quiet, beating inside you. It's found in simple things. For example, it comes from seeing your tiny daughter asleep, or from waiting for your husband to come home late at night. When he does come home, you hug each other and stand there for ages - without having to say anything..."

And so these performers continue to investigate some rather distant ideals; their public art, constantly built in search of an audience, hopes to ponder the benefits of noiseless solitude. Four voices develop in praise of silence.

Nani Eva