Natalia Tsupryk shows the bright side of Ukraine on her new EP

Kyiv-based composer Natalia Tsupryk released the neoclassical EP Are We Alive?. On it, she reveals her homeland as a place full of love, resilience, and kindness despite the war.

The artist’s new EP was released on the Montreal-based label Moderna Records. According to Natalia, she used this release as another opportunity to tell an international audience more about her home, something she has done before.

"As with all my releases prior to 2022, it’s very important for me to talk to foreigners about Ukraine, as banal as that may sound. They are genuinely interested. The title 'Are We Alive?' is rather a question addressed to the rest of the Western world. Do they feel alive? Do people really need shelling and war to feel alive?

Since my audience is largely Western, I wanted to tell them a little about the front line. In liberal circles this is unfortunately something of a taboo, and they know almost nothing about the front as a human lived reality, only fragments from the news," Natalia shares with Neformat.

To accompany the four of five compositions, the musician used photographs by fellow photographers taken in frontline regions.

Listen to the EP via streamings

All of the EP's improvised tracks were recorded in summer, the most inspiring time of year for Natalia. She recorded them quickly in her home studio, in between two commercial projects. The mixing was handled by her British acquaintance Olly Shelton.

Natalia has only recently returned from the Sundance Film Festival, where the documentary film the lake, for which she composed the score, premiered. The film was directed by Abby Ellis, with Leonardo DiCaprio serving as executive producer. She is now beginning work on another film, a Ukrainian one. In addition, she plans to release two more albums this year.

Natalia Tsupryk is a Kyiv-based multi-instrumentalist and composer who has been releasing music since 2020. She plays the violin, viola, piano, and guitar. For some time she worked on Hollywood projects as a session violinist, but now she prioritizes her own creative work: feature-length films (mostly documentaries), theatre, and her own releases. Her discography includes several soundtracks, as well as a number of EPs and singles.

Natalia Tsupryk via socials:

https://www.instagram.com/zupryknatalia/

Cover photo — provided exclusively for Neformat