Author: Jenya Stashkov, art critic

Irina Irianova is an outstanding world-class professional academic pianist. She has performed numerous concerts around the globe over the past few years (Austria, England, Malta, Hungary, and Ukraine). She performs solo, as part of a trio or as an accompanist of a large orchestra. Her performance technique can be described as expressive, virtuosic, paradoxical and hyper-reflexive. Also, Irianova is the winner and laureate of many international performing competitions and festivals, such as the festival at Mako (Budapest, 2018), the international forum of Spanish art Música Ibérica", the Festos competition, and performance as part of the New Names foundation project, laureate of the Lyadov contest, and various contests in Austria and Malta, etc.

Irianova“s concert repertoire impresses with its diversity: classical music, modern academic music, avant-garde, jazz, folk, and pop music. The musician masterfully owns a variety of musical genres and knows how to work in a multi-genre manner. Irina Irianova”s performance of the classical fusion-jazz ballad “Spain” by Chick Corea deserves a separate analysis.

“Spain” is a classic example of mixing jazz improvisation and Southern European musical traditions. There are a huge number of performing variations of this masterpiece. The duet of Irina Irianova (piano) and Olga Putkova (flute) offers a special look at this musical work. Their delicate interpretation of “Spain” expands the stylistic palette of possibilities for the performance of this musical piece. Each familiar fragment of Spain is solved especially: a minimalistic mood turns into passionate impressionism, and Spanish musical motifs absorb late Webern and a little Scandinavian mood. Irina Irianova“s piano part occupies a special place in this performance. The piano part tries to be something between accompaniment and solo fragments. This complex effect is achieved through musical noise imitation and sharp jumps in the volume level. The musician deliberately refuses to just play the notes, instead, she consciously creates musical landscapes and this makes this performance related to sound art. It”s like working with dynamics and space. This is an infrequent effect when a pianist’s skill can be compared with the sophistication of the artistic language of Klee or Rothko. As viewers or listeners, we are amazed at the fusion of drama and performing virtuosity.

I warmly recommend everyone to attend any concert by Irina Irianova at the first opportunity.