Yakiv Tsvetinskyi: Back home through the world
Kateryna Ziabliuk
author, musician
Yakiv Tsvetinskyi is one of the most interesting and active musicians on the Ukrainian scene. He is open to almost all musical styles, enjoys performing on various instruments, and is always looking for opportunities to learn something new around the world. Sometimes it's hard to believe that one person can operate with so many skills and knowledge without getting confused.
Yakiv's life story proves that a healthy dose of perseverance attracts extraordinary events and important discoveries. After studying in Michigan (USA), he returned to Ukraine to develop the jazz department at the Dnipro Academy of Music. During the pandemic, he was selected for one of the leading educational programs for jazz musicians - Focusyear in Basel (Switzerland) and stayed there for a year, and now he has left for a training program at the Herbie Hancock Institute, where he will also conduct masterclasses and go on tour around the world. Each of these places has had some impact on his development and self-awareness as a musician.
Yakiv Tsvetinskyi © Oleg Samoilenko
In recent years, Yakov and I have been meeting mostly in the form of interviews. That time, we were so eager to share everything that had happened recently that the conversation lasted for several good hours, and we didn't even notice it. We talked about everything, including things that were obvious to us, such as our life stories. And it was a great opportunity to rethink our own story and share it with others.
Let's start from the very beginning - your first encounter with music. You started with classical music, didn't you?
Yes.
At what point did you feel drawn to other musical styles?
I was interested in jazz long before I entered music school. My parents had and still have a pretty rich music library - they always had Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, or Chet Baker, and I listened to them from the time I was a kid. I didn't realise it yet and I didn't know what it meant to be a jazz musician, but I loved it. And I started with classical music because this is the classical scenario of music education in our country. Of course, there were no jazz departments at the music school, and there was no improvisation, but there were always teachers who were interested in this repertoire. It was more fun to play than complex classical pieces, at least for an uneducated child from the countryside (laughs).
When I was studying, there were already two jazz orchestras in Dnipro. There was no [jazz] department, even though that's where the musicians who improvised and played mostly jazz were. When I joined the orchestra of the college, I was immediately invited to perform and offered concerts. By chance, I ended up in a group that played original fusion, so I had to start improvising, especially since we played a lot of concerts and people came to them... I can say that I got into a real whirlpool of musical life, not knowing almost anything yet.
Later I met a bassist, Yurii Buzylov, who still lives and works in Dnipro. He is a man who has done a lot for education in Dnipro and Ukraine.
He translated David Baker's How to Play Bebop, for example.
He has translated many jazz theory books. You could call him a real jazz activist. We started playing traditional jazz concerts with him, and I received my first lessons in jazz theory from him, along with my first experience of playing jazz. During these concerts, I met Mykhailo Lyshenko, with whom I collaborated for quite a long time, as well as Dmytro Lytvynenko, with whom I still record music. Naturally, classical music faded into the background, and when the jazz department was opened [at the Dnipro Music Academy], I officially retrained.
There was a time in your life when you performed with the band Hromadianyn Topinambur. "The Theatre of Hard Rock", a story about the average post-Soviet citizen...
You know, I think that if this band had played jazz, I wouldn't have left this place [Dnipro]. I wouldn't have gone to study abroad, I would have just played with them. Everyone is very different, each of the members is a separate bright character, and all are high-level musicians. At the same time, we spent a lot of time together. With this band, we travelled to the then-unoccupied Crimea, to Odesa, and all over Ukraine.
I can also say that it was there that I improved my arranging skills, when I quickly wrote parts for three wind instruments during rehearsals, trying out all the possible techniques that I had read in the manuals.
The band used to have a Russian-language name, but that changed a long time ago, and they started recording music only in Ukrainian. Roman Zabuga, the leader, is currently serving in the National Guard and manages to actively write new music, and when he is on leave, the band records it all. Maksym Husevych, the band's bassist, was also called up.
“Now every Ukrainian musician has a mission to show what is happening in Ukraine and who Ukrainians are. It’s a very difficult process, but I think that the incentive alone makes our music much better.”
So, here we go: you later went on a Fulbright programme to the US, returned to Ukraine, and started a teaching revolution at the Dnipro Conservatory... Tell, what were your intentions when you went there and what happened as a result?
Coming back to the topic of education in Ukraine: my goal was not only to go to study the instrument, which I had always wanted to do. I also wanted to see how music education functions in an environment where jazz has been taught in one form or another for almost 100 years. Although jazz music was officially taught in the United States in the 1950s, before that it was passed down as folklore from master to student. I planned to create a system of teaching that would work well in the Ukrainian context. The primary (and obvious) difficulty in all of this is that the Ukrainian jazz community is much smaller. The knowledge that an American student can gain only from observing senior colleagues performing is not so easily accessible to a student from Ukraine. That is, we had to artificially create conditions in the academic environment so that this community, like a well-groomed plant, could grow well and be able to integrate with communities outside of Ukraine. The two years of study were great, it was probably the best period of my life. I met so many people with whom I share common interests that it seemed even strange.
What city were you assigned to?
I went to a city called Kalamazoo, which I had only heard of from a song, and I thought to myself: "Why not New York, why not Los Angeles or Philadelphia?" because it was the choice of the programme committee, which I had little influence over. But I met Andrew Rathbun there, who played and recorded with Kenny Wheeler, who is my number one trumpeter. Andrew is an incredible composer and tenor saxophonist, and I learned from him about composition and arrangement, about free improvisation. And so it was clear that this was the best environment for me - I could take my time to find what I needed. As a student, I had the opportunity to play with Peter Erskine, Theo Blackman, with whom I still keep in touch, as well as with many others who were there.
After returning home, we began to change the system at the Dnipro Conservatory. I was very pleased to see that any idea was met with sincere enthusiasm, which is rare in our country. In 2018, a new team of teachers gathered: me, Danylo Vynarykov, Oleksii Boholiubov, and Kyrylo Revkov. Everyone worked with incredible enthusiasm, so we made a lot of noise throughout the country (laughs).
We had no goal to compete with other academies. We just wanted to offer an alternative model that could be adopted by educational institutions across Ukraine, so that everyone could start moving forward. And it seems to have worked. Most universities have found their "profile". For example, Berklee, New School, or Gulliard School, apart from the fact that the level of teaching is very high everywhere, each of the schools offers a different programme. Somewhere they teach people who want to study traditional jazz and its history in depth, somewhere it goes in a modern direction, for example, delving into contemporary academic music and collaborating with musicians in this direction, or an ethnic component, as at Berklee. I think it should work the same way in Ukraine.
How do you imagine this process?
Of course, it's not a run through a field of daisies. It is a complex and long process, often painful because you constantly face resistance beyond your control. Such as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which does not help the learning process. There was a time when I was giving a lecture and talking about how to play a chord or write it correctly, and then a ballistic missile fell near our dormitory, the air defence system did not detect it and the siren did not go off. We ran to the bomb shelter, so what kind of music could we be talking about?
One of the students who didn't come to my lecture that day lived 300 metres from where the missile fell. He sent me photos and videos of destroyed houses in the private sector. It was a serious trauma for him, but I decided to cheer him up with humour and said: "This is a sign! You have to go to classes and play music." Although it wasn't easy for him at that moment, it finally worked (laughs).
You know, I'm still amazed at how Ukrainians can find a reason to joke in the most difficult situations to reduce stress somehow...
Yes. I think we would not have survived without it. But even through the jokes, everyone is aware of the whole tragedy and does everything to bring the victory closer.
“I couldn’t write about anything more significant and global than my own experience.”
...and then you suddenly break away from Ukraine to Switzerland, to Basel. Where did this idea come from and how spontaneous was it?
I didn't have an idea to break away, it was more of a feeling that I was missing something in my playing and music. Since I hold a teaching position, I was acutely aware that I was running up against a certain limit of knowledge, and the credit of students' trust was enormous. I wanted to gain new experience that I could share, and thus expand this knowledge limit.
I applied for the Focusyear study program in the first year, and a friend recommended it to me. I looked through the list of teachers and was just delighted. I did not pass, but I worked on my mistakes and supplemented my portfolio. In short, everything was a level higher. So, in December 2019, I was invited to the second round of auditions. At first, I was incredibly excited, then I was scared, and even later the pandemic started.
It was a key event that changed and inspired thoughts about what to do with my life. My then-wife got a position at the Lviv Opera, and I realised that I was going to move to Lviv. I had contacts with people, but it took a lot of time and energy to join the team and find my stage. It was an existential stupor. So I began to have doubts that I would never make it to the audition, and I had already lost a certain advantage because the auditions would be held online.
In the end, I passed the audition, and it was an interesting experience. In addition to listening to you and talking to you through the camera, they also give you an exercise to perform. The exercise is a piece that you have to arrange overnight. In my case, it was a Diabelli waltz from the early 19th century. A simple thing, but only at first glance. The time was until 2 pm - after a night of arranging, I ran around the conservatory with a dictaphone and asked my students and friends to record their parts for me. A few days later I had a positive response.
And it didn't get any easier?
Yeah, there was a heavy workload with rehearsals for six or seven hours every day. There was a certain fatigue, which was accompanied by a constant feeling of discomfort. We had a new teacher every other week, and each coach was a new world with new rules. Each of us is accustomed to certain standards of musical professionalism - when, for example, an orchestral trumpeter has to have his part, form, and strokes, and this is his instruction, which he works by. In our case, there were no instructions or schemes. It often happened that the pieces we played were sung to us and then that was it - now write it down on notes, make an arrangement! And you arrange your part, listening to what people around you are playing, and only verbally agreeing on what to play and where. In the end, everything was figured out right during the game, which was both exciting and nerve-wracking. At times, it seemed like you were going crazy, because there were very difficult weeks, with an incredible number of tasks that sometimes discorded with your vision. You didn't know what to expect from the coaches. After that, it was clear that your vision is just your bubble, from which you look with your "right" view at something that also has its truth. It teaches you to be ready for anything.
Have there been any mentors who have really impressed you with their approach to music?
Everyone we worked with was unique in their way. For example, at the beginning, we had a Swiss pianist, Malcolm Braff, who grew up in Senegal. He had his rhythmic concept, which completely threw me off. Malcolm explained how you can swing not only with eight notes but also with whole combinations of notes. The main task was to smoothly transition from even notes to swinging notes, which in turn turned into a new measure size, which should also be swung. It's quite difficult to describe, but the concept is very deep, and everyone still remembers that difficult week with Malcolm with a nervous tic (laughs).
Classes with Malcolm Braff. Photo: Yakiv Tsvetinskyi
Jen Shu also worked with us. She speaks ten languages and plays almost all Asian folk instruments. Her concept is also based on rhythm - there are, for example, 15/8 or 13/8 beats in which notes are grouped into 2 and 3, and these groups are constantly shifting. Sometimes it happened that the melody was based on the same groups, which shifted in the opposite direction.
And while you're walking around like that, you can listen to other people's phrases, memorise them and sing along. After that, everyone would stand in a circle - one person would go out and create a theatrical scene with the last phrase they heard, and then invite someone to join in. For Jen herself, it was incredibly natural and easy. I was impressed by how a musician can materialise all the images and emotions that we try to put into dry notes and create a separate dimension out of them.
I understand you very well. After all, I remember similar remorse and feelings when I came to a jam or concert and saw a high-level musician. Subconsciously, you start comparing and thinking that you are nothing compared to them. At such moments, I remembered Ambrose's phrase, which is now firmly etched in my memory: "Play what you live." It's very difficult because you have to constantly have a lie detector on to determine whether you're on the right track. But when it gets a little bit better, you don't worry about such thoughts - the musician who is "better" from your point of view will never play like you, and vice versa. Everyone lives their own unique life.
That's exactly right. That's such a good point! It's the same idea that I faced and fought with for a long time. By the way, Tina Margareta Nielsen, a music therapist, worked with us. She deals with these internal blocks, and physical ones as well. At the time, I was balancing between two unhealthy positions. On the one hand, I didn't want to tell something personal in my music, because I thought no one needed my personal stories, and on the other hand, I didn't want to talk about global world issues, because who am I to talk about them? I don't know anything about global warming (smiles). So I was floundering between these two thoughts until I was told that I couldn't write about anything more significant and global than my own experience. Your own experience! It may seem insignificant, and unnecessary, but, as you say, it is the best thing you can do in your work. It will be interesting, and it doesn't matter if it's the story of Salvador Dali or the story of a trumpet teacher at a music academy in Dnipro.
Focusyear Band 21 et Django Bates (archive of Yakiv Tsvetinskiy)
What is the biggest change that has happened in your life over the past two years? How would you compare yourself before the full-scale invasion and now?
I think like most musicians at this point, I've gone through a lot of metamorphosis. In the beginning, a lot of things I did that were important to me lost their meaning. For the first couple of months, I hardly picked up an instrument because it seemed that music was irrelevant. After all, before we were all chasing aesthetics, we were looking for it, which ultimately turned out to be unimportant. So for a long time, I couldn't find my way back to music and my instrument.
I was more fortunate. I know musicians who have stopped listening altogether, but for me, music was an outlet and helped me cope psychologically with the situation. Then we [the musicians] started playing charity concerts and suddenly music started to take on a new meaning. It didn't matter what you played or how you played it, as long as you were helping and raising money, and it seems that all the representatives of our Ukrainian jazz community were volunteering. Dennis Adu, Usain Bekirov, David Kolpakov, a whole group of Lviv musicians and I worked at the warehouse, loading and unloading the humanitarian aid. And this whole community came together in a completely different context, but this ability to self-organise was at such a high level that we were even offered permanent jobs at that warehouse (laughs). It turned out that jazz musicians are very good at palletising, packing, and unpacking lorries quickly.
“When his brother called, he said the same thing: “Mykola died so that you could play music”. It was then that I realised I had no right to stop playing.”
I think the biggest turning point for me was the death of my cousin, Mykola Tsvetinskyi, who had been at the front since 2014. In May 2022, he was killed near Vuhledar, almost the entire team was killed, and it was a shock for me that I still cannot fully accept. When his brother called me with the news, he said the same thing: "Mykola died so that you could play music". It was then that I realised I had no right to stop playing. It showed me the scale of what music should be for me in general - it should have a deeper meaning.
Another terrible event that influenced many things and happened recently was the death of Sergei Artemov. He was a close friend of mine, we knew each other since college in Dnipro and went through a lot together. And he was distinguished by his unambiguity in music - he always had clear guidelines for what music should be. When the full-scale invasion began, he went to the front voluntarily. I tried to transfer him to a military orchestra to keep him away from the actual fighting, but he refused. He said that he was " doing his duty and will do it to the end - killing Russians and then playing bass guitar".
Serhiy Artemov, Yakiv Tsvetinskyi, Ksenia Slobodian, Danylo Vinarykov and Mykhailo Lyshenko after the concert (photo from archive of Yakiv Tsvetinskiy).
So, if we talk about life before and after, the first thing we lost was carelessness. Before that, music was much more often an entertainment than an attempt to say something important. Now every Ukrainian musician has a mission to show what is happening in Ukraine and who Ukrainians are. It's a very difficult process, but I think that the incentive alone makes our music much better.
How often do the musicians around you talk about war and loss? Do they communicate their emotions or do they rather keep it to themselves?
Of course, this discussion is happening now, definitely more than it was before. It's clear that when people witness so many tragedies, it's terrible. A rocket flies, and you realise that it's not flying towards you, maybe you don't know the people who lived in that building [where the rocket hit]... But it's a shared pain on a very deep level.
I've seen musicians who just give up. They see no point in anything, they see no future, even though they understand that Ukraine will be free and progressive. And everyone would like to return to their old carefree life, but this will never happen.
Some musicians take a more practical view of these things. They think: "Well, you need to make money with music to help people," and even lesser-known musicians go on tours that can raise substantial amounts of money and feel needed. What helps me to alleviate this pressure is volunteering and fundraising for specific causes. As Wayne Shorter said: "Humanity is your tool," and realising that helps. No matter what you do, no matter what symphonies or albums you write, you are still a human being, and these human factors will still put pressure on you. So I think accepting the situation makes the whole process much easier for musicians. Everyone sees the common mission differently, but we are moving in the same direction, which is reassuring.
Do you see a way to bring discouraged musicians back into the fold?
Yes. I think they just need to feel needed. Any reminder of this is important. For example, there was a big band concert at the Dnipro Philharmonic, where I played and which was directed by Danylo Vynarykov. It was a very good big band, but I had the feeling that it was all entertainment, which was completely out of time - we were playing swing, funny songs, and everyone was laughing.
And then I heard a story: the father of one of the listeners was on leave, returned from the army, and just couldn't smile because of the burden of what he had seen. And during this concert, she saw him smile for the first time! That's how you realise that these [concerts] have to exist. People still really need to forget about the war for one small second, just to let all this tension go away. Then you can return to reality with more energy and better mental health. So, every musician needs this reminder.
Any plans for the near future?
You know, I'm in a very interesting situation right now. I've been accepted to the Herbie Hancock Institute, and I'm currently sorting out the paperwork to legally go there to study. I have very little time left for this, so I'm worried because bureaucratic issues are always resolved very slowly.
It's like I'm going to study for a master's degree, but it's more like a residency - they just put together an ensemble and they play for two years. Ambrose [Akinmusire - ed.] is the artistic director who will be conducting most of the classes. We're planning a concert in New York, then Jordan - we'll teach children and play concerts, then a concert with Dee Dee Bridgewater and teaching in Saudi Arabia. So it looks like it's going to be two years of interesting intensity.