Polina Nazaykinskaya

Born in Togliatti, an industrial city on the Volga River in Russia, Polina Nazaykinskaya studied piano, violin and flute as a child, and as a teenager at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory she concentrated on violin and composition. She came to the U.S. to attend the Yale School of Music, where she completed a master’s degree in composition and theory and artist diploma in composition, working with Christopher Theofanidis and Ezra Laderman. She is now is pursuing a doctorate degree in composition at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, studying with Tania León.

Polina has won numerous awards including the Charles Ives Scholarship at The American Academy of Arts and Letters and has garnered performances by ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Hermitage Orchestra and Chorus, the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra, the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Russia, the Omsk
Philharmonic Orchestra, the St. Olaf Philharmonia and the Juventas New Music Ensemble, where her chamber opera, The Magic Mirror, drew considerable attention for its elegance and rich, intricate score.

Trombone Concerto (excerpt):

In The Composer’s Own Words
Rhythms and sounds can reveal the power of the invisible world. Turning the pages of the Nature’s Book of Life, one may re-discover a sense of mystery that is part and parcel of our existence. Learning to see the words that have not been written down gives one the ability to perceive the contours of light and darkness more clearly and understand the wind that
brings change. The difference between a deeper communication with the forces of nature and a method of divination disappears as future and the past become intertwined.