Sopranos

Tamara Kotomenkova

In the choir since 2024

Tamara Kotomenkova graduated from the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory (Choral Conducting Department, the class of Professor Yuri Yevgrafov and People’s Artist of Russia Gennady Dmitryak).
She began her career in music as a pianist and became laureate of international and all-Russian competitions. From 2022 to 2023, she worked as an accompanist of a vocal workshop at the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts GITIS.

From 2021 to 2024, she was an artist of the Sveshnikov State Academic Russian Choir. Since 2023 she has been a soloist, conductor, and artistic director of the trio NOĒSIS: the debut of the ensemble took place at the festival Five Evenings in the Small Hall of Zaryadye. She is a soloist of the vocal direction CEAM VOICES headed by Nikolai Popov.

She has collaborated with such ensembles as the EXPERIMENTUM vocal ensemble, the Praktika vocal ensemble under the direction of Olga Vlasova, the Yurlov Russian State Academic Choir, as well as the vocal ensemble Russian Baroque conducted by Ioann Sevzikhanov.

As a singer, she participated in the interdisciplinary laboratory Context 2023 at the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre, at the Gorky + Festival as part of the show Twinkling. Legends of Danko, in the media performance Gorky. Remove from friends (Nizhny Novgorod, 2023), and the Educational Programme of the Diaghilev Festival 2024.

As a performer and conductor, she collaborated with contemporary composers including Nikolai Popov, Vladimir Gorlinsky, Alexey Sioumak, Pavel Polyakov, Yekaterina Khmelevskaya, Natalia Prokopenko, Anton Svetlichny, Lilia Iskhakova, Dmitry Mazurov, Elizaveta Loban, and Polina Krasovskaya.

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO THE WORLD OF MUSIC?

As a child, my parents sent me to a music school, which was famous for its graduates, discipline, and a busy schedule of tours and competitions. For a long time, I positioned myself as a pianist, although I did not like to practice and often protested about it. I entered college already as a choir conductor, but I rebelled there too. It was a difficult teenage period, but the love of music helped me stop putting a spoke in my own wheel. My temper receded into the background.

Despite all the recommendations, I entered the Moscow Conservatory to study with Yuri Anatolyevich Yevgrafov. This professor, to say the least, changed my fate. Thanks to his composition You Left the Village Behind, I chose the department of choral conducting over the performance department. His training is very specific, yet he showed me how to achieve performance freedom, and this is the most important thing for a musician. Studying at the conservatory was not easy for me. In the early years, I continued to think of myself as a pianist and came to the conservatory at seven in the morning to study until 11 in the evening: I no longer had an instrument at home. After that, my regular classes started, then I gave lessons to private students, then I studied myself again. I had to overcome not only fatigue, but also a feeling of lack of skill. Finally, I decided to stop swimming against the current and completely immersed myself in vocal performance.

WHICH OF THE MUSICIANS INFLUENCED YOU MOST?

I have a thing for Scriabin's music, especially his later opuses. The colour of his preludes fascinates me. I love Tishchenko and his less known contemporary Alexander Lokshin. Unfortunately, his music is almost never performed. It was Olga Vlasova who introduced me to modern vocal music. Together with her, I have repeatedly performed Luigi Nono's vocal cycle The Forest Is Young and Full of Life. In modern music, it is the opportunity to be not only a vocalist, but also an artist, performer, and dancer that attracts me. And the main thing is that it allows to find oneself amidst the throbbing modernity, not in nostalgia for the past or dreams of the future.

HOW DID YOU START WORKING AT MUSICAETERNA?

I first heard musicAeterna when I was a student volunteering at one of Mozart's Requiem concerts. Unfortunately, due to the hustle and stress, I couldn't really embrace the music. A few years later, I saw an advertisement for recruitment to the Diaghilev Festival Choir and I didn't think twice, I applied immediately. During the classes, I was amazed by the level of Vitaly Polonsky's work, and at the subsequent audition, I was impressed by the depth of Teodor Currentzis's questions. We hardly talked about the composition I was performing, but rather about my spiritual path and world outlook.

I moved from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in order to work at musicAeterna. Three months after moving, I feel at home here: I have my own cosmetologist and orthodontist. I'm back at the gym, I'm practicing yoga. For me, the easiest way to adapt, to ‘ground myself’ in a new place, is to do the cleaning. I like to put my house in order on weekends, and after that I go out with friends.

WHAT IS YOUR DREAM?

I have a dream, or rather even a goal, to develop modern vocal performance in Russia. I would like to launch a festival where everyone who is interested in current vocal techniques could learn something new for themselves, and get to know modern composers. It seems to me that there are few such opportunities in our country. As for my big dreams, I would like to conquer Elbrus.

musicAeterna choir events

February 23, 19:00

Moscow | Zaryadye Hall

Esperia

mystery-concert

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February 24, 19:00

Moscow | Zaryadye Hall

Esperia

mystery-concert

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April 5, 20:00

Moscow | Great Hall of the Conservatory

Сoncert of musicAeterna: Kurtág, Brahms

Symphony concert

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April 6, 20:00

Moscow | Great Hall of the Conservatory

Сoncert of musicAeterna: Kurtág, Brahms

Symphony concert

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