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Pianist Yelena Eckemoff to release new recording in spring 2025 “I dreamed about being born in medieval times, ” says composer Yelena Eckemoff. Yelena’s newest album is not a rendering of early-music tropes in modern jazz feels. Rather, in her writing on this album Yelena synthesizes classical music constructs and her original melodies with the varied rhythmic and stylistic innovations of jazz, fusion, and world music from the 21st century. Beyond this, she invests each moment of the album with her own sense of delight in leading and performing this unique material. Yelena recorded this album in Mantua, Italy, bringing together an ensemble perfectly suited to execute her ideas: esteemed Italian musicians Riccardo Bertuzzi on electric guitar, Carlo Nicita on flute, Eloisa Manera on violin, Riccardo Oliva on electric bass, and legendary percussionist/drummer Trilok Gurtu. From the first moments of “Pilgrims, ” the album opener, with Gurtu’s decisive attack on the drums and Oliva’s funk vibe in the bass, the listener is put on alert that this album defies the expectations of its title. It’s when Yelena enters with a chant-like theme in the piano, however, that one first begins to understand the ingenuity of her writing—how the impact of a simple melodic notion can change depending on its context. As if to prove this point further, Yelena continues to upend the tune, first with Bertuzzi’s blazing entrance on electric guitar, then with Nicita’s seductively sweet flute lines. Astonishingly, these transitions between musical ideas are seamless. “This project is so different from my others because it has prog-rock feel, ” says the accomplished self-produced musician, who, with this latest title, has now released more than 20 critically acclaimed albums via her own label, L&H Production. “I didn’t want just guitar and bass, I wanted rock guitar and electric bass and really strong drums. On this recording you’ll hear me playing not only piano, but medieval instruments like organ, clavichord, harpsichord, and celesta. I also wanted violin and flute, and I think this somewhat atypical instrumentation gives the music another dimension.” Yelena brings this same attention to the album’s narrative construction: one tune flows organically into the next as she weaves a vibrant sonic tableau depicting medieval life. In her vision, each tune captures a unique aspect of those far-off times—much like the fairy tales that so mesmerized her as a child. “For as long as I can remember, I was surrounded by books, growing up in the imaginary world of folk stories and fairy tales, ” Yelena remembers, emphasizing how strong a hold this literature has had on her imagination. “I remember being very little, sitting on a huge sofa with stacks of books around me, scrutinizing wonderfully illustrated pages of one book after another. Then, in elementary school, I would play a game about living on a different planet, set in medieval times, where I walked among castles, horses and carriages, kings and princes. Later, in the fourth grade, I wrote a story about medieval times with music. Funny, but a couple of the melodic ideas from that effort made their way into this album.” Those who follow Yelena’s career will not be surprised by the enormous creativity in this collection; Yelena always brings a wealth of deep thought to everything she does. What might surprise listeners, however, is how persistently this project has been forming in Yelena’s mind, resurfacing intermittently years after she wrote those first little snippets for a grade school performance. “In my late teens I played in a progressive rock band, which influenced my composing with prog-rock idioms, ” she explained. “Later, after immigrating to the United States, I was working in my MIDI studio and utilizing the rich possibilities of Kurzweil K-2000 sequencer and created a project that I called Medieval Symphony, where I mixed a medieval feel with prog-rock and fusion. This project represented my reincarnated childhood dream about medieval times—how I imagined them, according to all those wonderful, illustrated fairy tales I used to read and love. “I planned to release Medieval Symphony along with my prior projects involving MIDI, like The Birth of Emmanuel, Kaleidoscope of Life, and Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. But I started to realize that my solo efforts—where I played all the instruments, including drums—lacked the live touch of real musicians. So, I left the project unreleased. “New, different projects followed, recorded with various jazz musicians. And finally, I thought about going back to my unreleased medieval project, to be recorded with a live band. I reworked all the tunes from the original Medieval Symphony, added new material, and infused it all with jazz improvisation. “So, basically, this project started a long time ago for me, having taken root in my childhood infatuation with medieval life. Like a never-ending fairy tale, images from medieval life have continued to inspire me.” To modern ears, these compositions will register as present-day fairy tales, sparkling with the same imagination and wonder that has kept these most beloved stories alive for centuries. Like fairy tales, too, Yelena’s work carries deeper meanings; its sophistication lies in her talent for making the complex seem simple and the simple beautiful. “I planned to release Medieval Symphony along with my prior projects involving MIDI, like The Birth of Emmanuel, Kaleidoscope of Life, and Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. But I started to realize that my solo efforts—where I played all the instruments, including drums—lacked the live touch of real musicians. So, I left the project unreleased. “New, different projects followed, recorded with various jazz musicians. And finally, I thought about going back to my unreleased medieval project, to be recorded with a live band. I reworked all the tunes from the original Medieval Symphony, added new material, and infused it all with jazz improvisation. “So, basically, this project started a long time ago for me, having taken root in my childhood infatuation with medieval life. Like a never-ending fairy tale, images from medieval life have continued to inspire me.” To modern ears, these compositions will register as present-day fairy tales, sparkling with the same imagination and wonder that has kept these most beloved stories alive for centuries. Like fairy tales, too, Yelena’s work carries deeper meanings; its sophistication lies in her talent for making the complex seem simple and the simple beautiful. About Yelena Eckemoff Over the past 15 years, Yelena Eckemoff has recorded an extraordinary series of albums featuring a cross section of jazz masters, including drummers Billy Hart, Nasheet Waits, and Gerald Cleaver, saxophonists Chris Potter and Mark Turner, vibraphonist Joe Locke and cornetist Kirk Knuffke. Part of what makes Eckemoff’s emergence as a major voice in jazz is that she’s gained international renown without performing. Years ago she decided to focus all of her attention on writing—and finding the right players to interpret and record her music. Working from her home in rural North Carolina, the astonishingly prolific composer has connected with a diverse pool of master improvisers, supplying them with music requiring rarified storytelling skills. Since early childhood she was a musical prodigy who began playing piano and composing at the age of four tutored by her mother, a noted piano teacher. By seven she was studying at the prestigious Gnessins Academy with Anna Pavlovna Kantor, whose former students include Evgeny Kissin. Eckemoff went on to the elite Moscow Conservatory as a young teen, but her musical curiosity eventually propelled her off the classical path. Enamored by Pink Floyd, she started dissecting prog rock, and became smitten with jazz when she attended Dave Brubeck’s famous 1987 Moscow concert. “And then I was studying jazz in the experimental Moscow Jazz studio, ” she says. “So that’s how I was educating myself.” Teaching and composing, she and her husband carved out a comfortable niche, but seeking more opportunities they decided to emigrate to the U.S. with their three children in 1991 as the Soviet Union started to disintegrate. A long, arduous process eventually found the family reunited in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she started to build a new life playing occasional concerts, teaching music, and working as a church musician. Frustrated by the uninspired level of local jazz talent, she eventually connected with veteran Danish bassist Mads Vinding via her MySpace page when he messaged her to offer his services. Thrilled with the results, she sent the overdubbed duo recording to drum legend Peter Erskine in Los Angeles. Duly impressed by her music, he added his contribution, which is how she created her breakout 2010 concept album Cold Sun. Eckemoff was off and running. Later that year she released Grass Catching the Wind working remotely with Vinding and Danish drummer Morten Lund, and the live session Flying Steps, featuring Erskine and first-call L.A.-based Polish bassist Darek Oles. She’s produced at least one album a year since then, working with the finest improvisers in Europe and the U.S., leading to critically hailed albums such as 2014’s A Touch of Radiance with Mark Turner, Joe Locke, George Mraz, and Billy Hart, and 2017’s In the Shadow of a Cloud with Chris Potter, Adam Rogers, Drew Gress, and Gerald Cleaver. “It is how an avalanche starts, ” Eckemoff says about her ever-expanding creative community. “You make a snowball and throw it down. It rolls down gathering more and more snow, and before you know there is a mass of snow, ice, and rocks falling rapidly down a mountainside.” The rock supporting all of Eckemoff’s expression is her faith, which she brought to the fore on 2016’s Better Than Gold and Silver, a double album featuring her vocal and instrumental settings for ten Psalms. She returned to the Bible in 2022 with I Am a Stranger in This World featuring Ralph Alessi, Drew Gress, Adam Rogers, and Nasheet Waits on a program of gospel-inflected instrumental settings for another selection of Psalms. Whether a project is driven by a narrative or not, “every album I do is conceptual, ” Eckemoff says. “I’ve been composing music since I was four. I don’t even try. Tunes come to me. Sometimes it’s too much. God created me like that. That’s why I don’t perform that much, and don’t want to perform anymore. I have so much to compose. And in the genre I compose, the project is only finished when recorded with jazz musicians. I design the project for them to be able to express themselves.” Yelena Eckemoff - Piano, Organ, Synths Riccardo Bertuzzi - Guitar Carlo Nicita - Flute Eloisa Manera - Violin Riccardo Oliva - Bass Trilok Gurtu - Drums, Percussion Release Date: March 28, 2025 L & H Production |
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