My Story

I wasn't supposed to become a singer.

As a child, a condition prevented my vocal cords from closing properly. My speaking voice was permanently hoarse, and while studying at the Gnessin Music School in Moscow I was officially excused from choir. During solfège lessons I answered questions verbally while my classmates sang. Nobody imagined I had an operatic voice. Least of all me.

Music, however, had always been part of my life. I was born into a family of musicians, where both my parents, all my grandparents and even some of my great-grandparents made music professionally. I grew up as a pianist, believing that would always be my path.

Everything changed by accident.

As a teenager I became fascinated by Irish folk music and began quietly singing along at home. One day a music teacher overheard me and suggested that I should study singing. She even dared to say that I might have an operatic voice. Everyone laughed, including me.

Four years of soul-crushing training with an abusive conservatoire teacher followed. By the age of twenty I had become convinced that I simply wasn't good enough. I left singing altogether.

Then I discovered Sarah Connolly.

Watching and listening to her performances changed something in me. When I learned that she had studied at the Royal College of Music, I decided to give singing one final chance.

That decision changed my life.

A remarkable teacher, Larissa Mirzayan, immediately recognised that I was not a lyric soprano, as I had always been told, but a mezzo-soprano. She once said that I was "a fish being judged on its ability to climb trees." It remains one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me.

I left my piano studies at the Moscow Conservatoire and travelled to London to audition for the Royal College of Music. I expected rejection.

Instead, I was offered a place on the Graduate Diploma programme with a scholarship that made it possible for me to stay.

Britain became my second home.

Since then I have performed throughout Europe, working with companies including the Royal Ballet and Opera, Opera2Day, Chelsea Opera Group, Dorset Opera Festival and many others. Alongside my performing career, I created and presented Intermezzo, my own weekly programme on Russia's national classical music station, Radio Orpheus, introducing new audiences to opera and classical music. The programme was honoured with the station's Golden Microphone of Orpheus award.

At the same time, my life outside music became increasingly shaped by events in my homeland. Raised in a family with strong democratic values, I became involved in Russia's opposition movement and publicly spoke against the country's growing authoritarianism. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I found myself unable to return home safely in the way I once had. Like many Russian artists who opposed the regime, I began navigating the complex reality of living between countries while continuing to build an international career.

These experiences changed not only my life, but my art.

They led me to create projects exploring memory, exile, identity and the ways in which music helps us understand ourselves and each other.

They also brought me back to something I had experienced since childhood but never fully understood.

I have synesthesia.

When I hear music, I don't simply hear sound. I experience colours, textures, flavours, scents and physical sensations. For years I assumed everyone perceived music this way. Only later did I realise that my inner world was unusual.

Today that experience lies at the heart of my newest projects.

Through The Great Experiment, I invite audiences to step inside my sensory world and discover their own. Through Synesthesia Studio, music becomes a starting point for creativity, conversation and visual art. Every performance ends with a Musical Snowflake: a completely improvised piece inspired by the audience's sensory imagination, created once, shared once and never performed again.

I have spent much of my life searching for my own voice.

Now my greatest joy is helping other people discover theirs.