MARIA KONOSHENKO
mezzo-soprano, piano 

Songs of exile – old and new

SATURDAY 27 July 2024, 7.30pm,
St. Nicholas Church, SWAFIELD

Maria Konoshenko, the Russian born mezzo-soprano, performed in Norfolk many times, she is very well known to the audience of Trunch Concerts. In spring 2022 Maria raised her voice against Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and performed at the “Songs for Ukraine” fundraising concert in Trunch. Maria currently lives in Finland and works at the University of Helsinki.

This concert will be dedicated to the multiple experiences of war, emigration and protests. Maria will sing some of the old songs by Alexander Vertinsky, as well as her own newly composed songs based on modern poetry in English and Russian (with on-screen translation). Alexander Vertinsky was a poet, singer, composer and cabaret artist of the post-revolutionary emigration, who exerted seminal influence on the Russian tradition of artistic singing. Even Sergei Rachmaninov, who hated gramophone recordings, greatly appreciated the recordings of Alexander Vertinsky’s songs. In  1926, Vertinsky made one of the earliest recordings of the song  “Endless Road” (“Dorogoi dlinnoyu”) which, with English lyrics by Gene Raskin, was a major hit for Mary Hopkin in 1968 as “Those Were the Days”.

Maria is not only a wonderful singer, but also a linguist. She loves to perform music in many different languages, of many different styles including Baroque, music of C20, traditional slavic songs, Jazz and even African folk music.