We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nika Leoni. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nika below.
Nika, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I knew that I was a musician and a creator at a very early age. My parents used to tell me how, when I was about 4 years old, I demanded to sing for any new guest in the house who had not heard me “perform” yet. Starting at the age of 8, I produced stage variety shows during my summer stays at my grandmother’s house, engaging kids from the neighborhood, and organizing special performances for the families and neighbors. At the age of 11, I found out the entrance requirements at the local music school, and without telling my parents, signed up for the auditions. I practiced my piano pieces every day after school when no one was home, and after I had passed the entrance exams and the audition, I then revealed to my parents that I got accepted. My amazing piano teacher at that school helped me build a strong foundation for my further music education and training. When I was 12, I wrote my first composition. It was a short piano piece, but it made me experience the excitement of creating music for the first time. As a teenager, I learned to play some chords on my guitar and soon after, I started writing my own songs which I performed for family and friends. I remember carrying my guitar to every school event, every party, every family gathering. I also continued composing on my piano and dreamed of getting into the Conservatory as a composition student. Since childhood, I have also been mesmerized with live theater, and I always dreamed of writing music for the stage.
Later, after my family immigrated to the United States, and as I continued my piano training, I “accidentally” discovered my classical voice and began taking voice lessons. I ended up studying Voice Performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where I received my Bachelor’s Degree. Studying the vocal technique was a revelation for me in all senses – physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. The mastery of a singing voice is a magical skill, and we, singers, go through eye-opening experiences and discoveries all the time when practicing or learning new music. It’s hard work but the rewards are immeasurable. Performing on an opera stage is also one of the most exhilarating experiences for me. Being part of a developing story on stage, bringing your character to life, serving as an essential part of the ensemble, making music side by side with talented colleagues – these experiences are priceless, and I was hooked on them. It made me put my composition ambitions on the back burner.
I began my singing career in Europe, but after a while, I came back to the United States. In New York, I finally decided to return to my composition roots. I went on to receiving my master’s degree from Hunter College focusing on composition and performance. As a singer, writing for the voice feels very natural to me, and I have a number of vocal compositions, including some choral pieces. My love for theater influenced my creative work to a great degree. I started producing opera and concerts, and later, I commissioned, wrote, and produced educational musical shows for children. Since I moved to St. Louis, I have been working on composing two operas – one is a chamber opera for children that teaches kids about kindness and honesty, and the other is a full-scale opera based on the life and work of a prominent American poet, the first woman laureate of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Sara Teasdale.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a classically trained composer and an opera singer with professional experience performing and producing opera on stage, as well as teaching operatic technique and style. My primary art form is opera and other classical vocal music, and I have been mostly writing music for the voice, such as opera, art songs, and choral pieces. I have been working on two new operas in the past few years, as well as some other works related to the genre.
What draws me to the process of composing for the voice is the storytelling aspect. Every vocal piece has a story to tell, words that narrate experiences and expresses emotions and the drama of the story. As a composer, I become a storyteller through music, which means that I create a special musical sub-text or an extra layer of the narrative. When I consider texts or lyrics for my compositions, I first read them carefully and try to “hear” their movement, rhythm, intonation, and articulation, and I strive to create the music that follows the texts’ dramatic and dynamic flow. I work very closely with the texts, clarifying and defining every word, every emotion, and every intention of the characters, and I use musical tools to paint dramatic elements.
Growing up in Russia, my early music education was rooted in the Russian classical tradition. My music composition style had developed based on these traditional tenets that were prevalent in the music around me in my childhood, as well as later throughout my opera singing career focused on the bel canto tradition. In my compositions, I have preserved the classical stylistic structures, while exploring various contemporary elements to incorporate into my compositional framework. I continuously work on expanding my creative boundaries and push myself further to develop my musical language beyond the limits of my musical upbringing that is also relevant to contemporary narratives.
For me, it is a double thrill to be able to bring music to my audiences in two different ways – as composer and as a performer. As a performer, I enjoy exploring new or rarely performed music, in addition to performing the standard repertoire pieces that still move and attract the audiences. Through the work at our new non-profit organization, In Her Sound, I am looking forward to discovering much of the unknown, unperformed, unrecorded pieces from the vast repertoire of music composed by women across times and cultures.
In my work, I am always driven by my passion for music, and, like many musicians, this passion leads me to working on many different projects (sometimes, more than one at a time), and in different capacities – those of a singer, composer, producer, and administrator. All the projects I have worked on are meaningful and important to me. In 2009, I released my first recorded album called “Dark Eyes,” which was a collection of Russian traditional songs that I arranged for two voices accompanied by guitar. I recorded it with my friend, tenor Dmitri Magsevi, who is a member of the ensemble at Staatsoper Theater in Berlin, Germany. It took me almost a year to produce this album, as I worked on perfecting every detail of it. I am now in the process of editing my second album titled “Of What I Dream,” which is a collection of rarely performed songs by Russian classical composers, recorded in New York together with the renown pianist and assistant conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, Yelena Kurdina. In New York, I also founded a production company Classical Presentations, with which I created and produced opera, concerts, and educational music shows for children.
When my family moved to St. Louis, I started looking for opportunities to share my passion with my new home city. In 2016, my friend Kathryn Thompson Favazza and I co-founded Make Music St. Louis – an organization that brought the international phenomenon, Make Music Day, to St. Louis for the first time. Make Music Day is a citywide celebration of music that brings people together through the experience of making or listening to music. This project has helped many local musicians gain publicity and new audiences, as well as create connections with local venues. During our work together on the Make Music Day project, Kathy and I also formed another creative partnership – a composer-librettist team. When I was conceiving ideas for my operas and sharing them with Kathy, she offered to contribute her literary talents to the writing of the libretti for these operas. We have been working together on both of my operas-in-progress. The first opera titled “The Secret of the Gold Queen” is scheduled for a concert version premiere in May 2024. It is an hour-long chamber opera for children based on my original fairytale, and it teaches children about kindness, honesty, and respect.
This year, I also began working on a new mission that is relevant, powerful, and close to my heart. Together with my friend and colleague, Benedetta Orsi, we co-founded a nonprofit organization “In Her Sound” dedicated to representing and promoting women composers and performers. Through our work, we organize concerts and educational programs that highlight women in music. We believe that women’s work in music deserves more visibility, inclusion, and recognition, which will lead to greater knowledge, understanding, and creativity on the part of the audiences and musicians.
Can you talk to us about taking risks?
Taking a risk is an inseparable part of a musician’s work. Performing live almost always carries a risk factor, but this is what makes it exciting and fresh for both performers and the audience. Of course, some unfortunate things can happen on stage, and we know many anecdotes of unexpected things happening during live performances, such as falling platforms, collapsing chairs, or wigs caught on fire, but I am not talking about those “catastrophic” incidents. Every time I walk out on stage, my experience is different – new audience, new sounds (like those awkwardly timed coughs and sneezes, for example – LOL!), different performing spaces, different smells, different orchestras, conductors, fellow singers. There are many factors that can either distract or inspire a singer during performance. That’s the risk I take with every new performance, and I know that I must be prepared well enough to handle anything unexpected. Something like this happened during my opera debut performance in the Czech Republic. As I began singing my aria, one part of the orchestra mistakenly started playing at the wrong tempo, resulting in a total cacophony sound coming from the orchestra pit. I knew I had to finish my aria no matter what, and I also needed to act and keep the scene moving. The orchestra finally caught up together, thanks to the conductor, and the scene ended well. I felt lucky that I happened to know my part so well that I could sing it in my sleep, and that the orchestra’s “derailment” didn’t throw me off. This was a good lesson for me early on in my career to always be one hundred percent musically and technically prepared and to be ready for anything on stage.
What is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?
I have worked with many wonderful musicians, teachers, coaches, mentors, and I am very fortunate to have received their wisdom, knowledge, encouragement, and support. Having such a support base is crucial for a musician. We musicians never stop practicing, and we continue to learn daily, whether we perform, teach, compose, or explore new repertoire. We always need another ear for a “sound check” of our work, or a colleague’s opinion on an interpretation, or a mentor’s wisdom on a creative decision. This is the kindness for which I am very grateful to have had in the course of my career. However, for the performer in me, the kindness and the support that comes from the audience is no less crucial, and I will always cherish one comment that I received after a performance. Several years ago, I was in Poland singing a beautiful piece written for voice and orchestra – Reinhold Glière’s Voice Concerto. After the concert, a woman approached me, and with tears in her eyes, told me that my singing of this piece reminded her of her childhood, because she used to hear it on the radio when she was a little girl. She said it completely transported her back to the happy times with her mother. She thanked me profoundly for the very special emotion which she had not felt in a long time, and she implored me to continue singing and bringing joy to people. This was one of the kindest remarks I have ever received, and it touched me deeply. It was tremendously rewarding to know that my singing had such an effect on someone and made her so happy. Her kind words gave me strength and hope, and they helped me solidify the purpose of my creative journey.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nikaleoni.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leoninika
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nika.leoni/
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/nikaleoni
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nikaleoni
Image Credits
Nika Leoni