‘Olga Jegunova is a name to watch’
Rob Cowan // Gramophone
Biography
Olga Jegunova is a multifaceted Russian-Latvian artist combining various genres and disciplines. While being a classical concert pianist, she puts strong emphasis on educational projects and philanthropic work. Alongside her award-winning pianist career, she has committed to a varied practice collaborating with other artists, publishing digitally and in print, launching a podcast as well as supporting musicians through fund-raising concerts. Olga’s interactive approach to audiences is another one of her unique qualities reflected in an effort to involve them in the performance by breaking down the traditional boundaries of classical recital. This also led her to collaborating with creatives from different fields blurring the boundaries between modes of expression. One of her recent projects is Music & Storytelling with Matthew Crampton. Together they created interactive storytelling programmes for all ages featuring greek mythology, Russian folklore and well-known stories like Peter & The Wolf and The Little Prince. Another recent project called Patience was created during the 2020-2021 corona crisis. It included recording and performing a newly commissioned piece by British composer Ben Ellin in collaboration with French photographer Gerard Uferas. Olga has been playing piano for over 3 decades during which she performed in various genres as a soloist and in ensembles recognised by multiple international awarding bodies, artists and educational organisations. Among them are Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg and the Royal College of Music in London. Her repertoire is therefore vast, spanning from baroque to contemporary pieces composed especially for her. Olga also is a Steinway Artist. Another branch of Olga’s creative career is music journalism and education. Having presented the Tchaikovsky contest LIVE for Medici TV, she started publishing interviews for ZIMA Magazine in print and Russian Art & Culture digitally. This evolved into her podcast exploring the history of music and contemporary musical practice where she is joined by acclaimed creatives to talk about tradition, meditation, experimentation and much more. Olga has also created a charity supporting talented musicians of all ages and organising fundraising events digitally and live. As an open-minded and dedicated creative, Olga continuously expands her practice in an effort to enrich the music community.
Piano Performance
Concerts
SLOW
From Liszt and Schubert to entirely new music, written especially for this album.
"It was important for me to create this album as an attempt to express my personal state of being today as well as to reflect on our present reality. War, climate crisis, anxiety and aggression around us don’t inspire me to entertain. Rather - to slow down. It is SLOW because I notice a rushing and ever-accelerating pace, in which we are often imprisoned. Therefore I invite you to SLOW down and allow music to do its magic".
CDs by Olga
Journalism
Here you can find podcasts, articles, interviews and live TV broadcasts.
Podcasts
Articles
Статьи
Live on Medici TV
Open Music Foundation
We love music and believe in its incredible power
What does the charity do?
We support talented music students of any age and ability.
• We offer bursaries for music learning
• We help arrange practice facilities
• We offer performance opportunities
• We help find musical instruments
• We provide learning materials
• We help find teachers and learning opportunities
• We offer professional advice
Open Music Foundation (formerly Olgarhythm) was founded in July 2015 in London, UK, by classical pianist Olga Jegunova and actuary Glyn Eggar.