Elisaveta Blumina belongs to a generation of musicians who put the music centre stage and do not pander to every demand by the music business. This has not gone unnoticed and has earned her an ECHO Klassik award. Besides her performing career Elisaveta has assumed the role, since 2012, of artistic director of the International Chamber Music Festival Hamburg. Since childhood, she associated sounds with colours. Thus, she always has colours in mind when making music, and associates tonal harmonies or dissonances with certain colour combinations. When Elisaveta started painting a few years ago, this was just another form of music making that allowed her to express her fantasies free from the constraints of concert life. Elisaveta Blumina is one of the leading performers of 20th and 21st century music, as illustrated by her recordings of the works of composers Nikolai Kapustin, Giya Kancheli, Valentin Silvestrov and Grigori Frid. In particular she has spearheaded the re-discovery of the composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg.
What has creating art meant to you over the last year?
As a concert pianist and musician I have always associated tones and sounds with colours. Thus, I always have colours in mind when making music, and associate tonal harmonies or dissonances with certain colour combinations. When I started painting a few years ago, this was just another form of making music that allowed me to express my fantasies free from the constraints of my concert life. My synesthetic approach to painting is therefore mostly not representational, my works are rather colour compositions that have a tonal equivalent in my imagination. “Book of Life” was created in a phase of artistic reorientation, lockdown and travel restrictions suggested a stronger focus on a single center of life. Painting has saved me from the depression so many have experienced as a result of the lockdown.
Book of Life
70 x 50cm