Jazz, Prog Rock, and Music Education in Ukraine: In Conversation with Yevhenii Dubovyk

Anton Sovva

1 hour ago

The name Yevhenii Dubovyk appears today in the most unexpected musical contexts. For gamers around the world, he is a part of the soundscape of the Zone in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. For fans of Ukrainian prog rock, he is the recognizable keyboard player in the band Obiymy Doschu (Embraces of Rain). For the jazz community, he is a virtuoso who boldly combines neo-soul, fusion, and academic techniques to create his own musical language.

Yevhenii proves that a modern Ukrainian musician does not have to limit oneself to a single niche. A graduate of the Chernihiv Music College and the Kyiv Music Academy, he moved away from the stereotypes of an academic pianist and chose a different path. His Yevhenii Dubovyk Project is a creative laboratory where a new generation of music — intellectual and energetic, technical and lively, thoughtful and emotional — is born.

Yet, behind the facade of successful releases and high-profile festival lineups lies a long journey of internal transformation. It is a story of finding one’s own voice amid noises of the metropolis, of learning to sound authentic within the academic system, and of creating a new Ukrainian culture amid war. We met with Yevhenii to talk about his journey: his first chords in college, big stages, artistic doubts, problems, and, above all, the significant development of the Ukrainian music industry.

The path of a professional musician in Ukraine often starts with a dilemma: to choose live stage performances or to enter the “monkhood” of academic education. For Yevhenii, this story became a tale of a double life, where two parallel worlds intersected at one point, behind the piano keys.

Yevhenii Dubovyk: How did I develop my current musical style? It all began at the Chernihiv Music College. I started there as a pop and jazz pianist. The first compositions I attempted to write during my student years were already related to jazz. Then I entered the conservatory. To be honest, I applied to both the academy and the Glier [The R. Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music — ed.], but I scored significantly higher at the conservatory. I don’t know how it happened, but I ended up there. I have a feeling that these two music institutions went hand in hand for me. Even while officially studying at the conservatory, I constantly went to Glier: to jam sessions, concerts, and to meet people. I was present in two worlds at the same time.

Studying at the academy is a separate and complicated story. Some teachers take their work so seriously there that they do not recognize the existence of anything outside of academic music. Unfortunately, this leads to sad consequences. I know of cases in the Piano, Composition, and Musicology departments where people, after graduation, needed to see a therapist. They were broken there. They were forced to write or play only “the right way” and no other way. These are big issues, and teachers often don’t realize that they can hurt their students.

Luckily, I had a great mentor, Ivan Taranenko, so things went well for me personally. There was a healthy atmosphere in our class; everyone had their own unique creative style, and we didn’t get in each other’s way or interfere with each other. However, the system itself is restrictive.

The curriculum remains outdated. It has not changed for years and exhausts students with irrelevant requirements. Unfortunately, I do not believe that changes are likely to occur soon.

Still, there were people who attempted to make a difference. For example, Alla Zagaykevych (worked at the academy from 1998 to March 2023 — ed.) sought to create a separate electroacoustic department within the composition department. It would have been ideal. People could have enrolled specifically in film music or electroacoustics and focused solely on those, without having to compose anything else. Alla Zagaykevych studied at IRCAM [Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music] in Paris, and her course was very valuable for students. However, given the current situation, it is unlikely that anything will come of this department. It has been effectively eliminated, or at least there is little left of it. There is also Svyatoslav Lunov. He is probably the only one left in the field of electronic music at the academy. It’s sad.

As for jazz at the academy, the situation is sustained by the enthusiasm of individuals such as Oleksandr Saratsky and Usein Bekirov. Many at the academy still perceive jazz as something alien, although in many countries jazz has long been taught on a level with classical music. Contemporary classical music and contemporary jazz often sound so similar that you can’t even tell them apart, but we are still afraid of that.

When you leave the halls of academy and step outside, the picture changes dramatically. Kyiv’s jazz scene has gone from elitist snobbery to complete democratization. The changes were brought about by a new generation and the phenomenon of fusion jams. Music ceased to be a sport and became a means of communication. The scale is particularly impressive. What began as small gatherings for friends has grown into a movement capable of filling halls with thousands of people. This testifies to the intense hunger of young people for high-quality, intellectual contemporary music.

Yevhenii Dubovyk: If we compare the academic environment and the jazz environment, the situation is better in jazz. This wasn’t always the case. Six or eight years ago, I felt there was something snobbish about jazz. There were jams, for example at Barman Dictat, and there was an impression that people worked on the principle of “whoever hits higher plays better.” It was a kind of sport. If young musicians came, they were likely to be intimidated. It discouraged them from wanting to keep playing, because everything was too fast, too technical, and too loud. Musicians were scared to go on stage.

Everything has changed. There are many amateur and professional jam sessions, and some of them are not strictly jazz at all. Musicians allow themselves to deviate from the standards and feel more comfortable on stage. It is impossible not to mention the Fusion Jams, Jam Street, and jam sessions at Jazz Club 43 in the annex of the Glier Academy. For example, it is incredible what Pavlo Galitsky does there. He holds open jams every Monday. Regularly. Even if something gets in the way, he holds them at a different time, but he doesn’t quit.

There are also small regular jam sessions organized by Fusion at SHOOM on Nyzhnoyurkivska every other Tuesday. Many young people attend these jam sessions. Some do not have specialized training, but they are eager to learn and try. They perform on stage with those who have already gained experience and are inspired by them. Fusion Jams is currently the leader in this field. This community has learned to work with sponsors and investors. They put on huge events. It all started with jams for 15 people. There have been cases when more than 1,000 tickets were sold for their jam concerts! People bought tickets to listen to young, little-known musicians.

That’s cool. They also have an educational mission. Recently, they held events for teenagers and children in collaboration with the organization Voices of Children, teaching how the industry works (I wish I had heard something like that when I was 16-18).

The map of Ukrainian jazz is a painstaking record of losses and, at the same time, a map of hope. Donetsk used to be the center. The war changed everything, forcing musicians to leave, but it didn’t stop the process. On the contrary, the network got tighter. Gradually, Ukrainian jazz is becoming part of the large European family, which opens doors for tours even in the most difficult conditions.

Yevhenii Dubovyk: It’s not just Kyiv. Although Kyiv currently occupies the leading niche, there is life in other cities as well. Very early on, Donetsk was the capital of jazz. Various competitions were held there, and it was truly prestigious. Now, as we know, this is no longer the case. People have dispersed, some to Kyiv, some to Kharkiv, and some abroad. In second place is probably Lviv with Dzyga and Jam Factory. There used to be a huge festival in Lviv,Leopolis Jazz Fest. Nowadays, it is impossible to hold it due to the war and its sponsors’ ties with Russia. However, I am confident that it will be revived, perhaps under a different name, with different organizers, but it will happen. Leopolis gave a huge boost to the industry. Oleksiy Kogan brought people there who would never have come to Ukraine otherwise.

I am currently working in Chernihiv, which is almost like my hometown (four years of studying and living there were not in vain). The situation in Chernihiv is very promising. The music college has had a Pop and Jazz department for a long time. There are people there who are passionate about this cause, looking for grants and inviting musicians from other cities. The industry is also developing in Rivne, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Dnipro.

Recent important developments include the creation of the Ukrainian Jazz Network (a concert network) and the Ukrainian Jazz Prize (an award for the best band and album of the year). The Ukrainian Institute is actively working towards the European integration of Ukrainian jazz in partnership with the European Jazz Network.

What does this give us? Now we have a chain of venues: 32 Jazz Club (Kyiv) — Dzyga (Lviv) — Art Jazz (Rivne). Other cities might join this chain over time. This makes it possible for jazz musicians to go on tours. Artists from Europe are no longer afraid to come to Ukraine. Kirke Karja from Estonia, Sebastian Studnitzky from Germany, and the duo Kravchenko & Clees from Luxembourg have already visited us. Things are slowly developing.

A modern musician must be a versatile individual: a creator, performer, and manager. Working on various projects has provided Yevhenii with an understanding of how this complex mechanism works from the inside. The range of his creativity is impressive — from outrageous indie to prog rock.

His collaboration with Stas Korolyov became a kind of crash course in show business. His band Obiymy Doschu (Embrace the Rain) was in a completely different realm, dominated by long compositions and deep melancholy. His experiments with Roman Melish’s Baroque vocals proved that there are no genre boundaries in music.

Yevhenii Dubovyk: I don’t want to get stuck on one thing. Life has taken me through different fields, and I want to use all of them in my work. Stas Korolyov probably immersed me most deeply in the artistic side of the music business. We had a band with Oleksandr Yavdyk (drums), Andrii Barmalii (saxophone), Anastasia Vesna (VJing) and Stas and me on keyboards. We lasted about a year and a half. Unfortunately, it all fell apart unexpectedly. However, this experience gave me an understanding of the industry from the inside: what a rider, booking, manager, and team building are. I didn’t have this foundation before.

I have been playing in the Ukrainian-language prog rock band Obiymy Doschu for 9-10 years. Our songs have a very rich instrumental part and noteworthy lyrics. The frontman (Volodymyr Agafonkin) is very fond of string instruments and prepares parts for them. Our tracks are 8-10 minutes long — this is “true” prog rock music.

At the same time, I wanted to explore a different direction, experimenting with voices and unusual timbres. That’s how the project with Roman Melish came about. Roman is a countertenor and soloist with the Liatoshynskyi Capella: Early Music Ensemble. I heard him at a concert in 2023, and his timbre really stuck with me. The idea arose to combine Roman’sBaroque voice with contemporary music. We took a poem by Yevhen Pluzhnyk and recorded a piece.

I like using unusual timbres and I used a soprano saxophone, beatboxing, and a countertenor in the piece. I don’t know how widely popular it will be, but that doesn’t matter to me; I’m interested in experimenting.

The Yevhenii Dubovyk Project remains Yevhenii’s main undertaking. It is a space of total free expression, mixing jazz with electronic and neo-soul. Despite the trend for singles, Yevhenii has big plans and is working on a full-length album, a bold yet essential step for a true artist.

Yevhenii Dubovyk: Currently, my primary focus is on the Yevhenii Dubovyk Project. It is a jazz-related endeavor. I hope to release an album in 2026. I intended to do so in 2025, but it did not work out. I am continuing to compile content for my album. I want to make a mark with it. Strategically, this may be wrong because now is the era of singles, and an album almost always means “commercial failure.” Our field is nearly always a financial suicide, but that doesn’t stop me.

I am helped in this by wonderful musicians: Ivan Kornienko (drums), Stanislav Dyachenko (bass guitar), Kyrylo Cherkashyn (saxophones), Dmytro Markov (saxophones), and Maria Titova (beatbox). I also had great collaborations with Andriy Frolov (electric guitar) and Dmytro Krystal (trumpet). Stylistically, it revolves around ECM jazz, neo-soul, and jazz-fusion with influences of electronic music and classical music.

We have released eight instrumental singles with the main lineup and one solo piano album by me. Over the past two years, we performed at various Ukrainian festivals, such as Atlas Festival, Fusion Jams, V’YAVA Yednannya [V’YAVA Unity], Blahodiynyi Kurazh Jazz [Charity Courage Jazz], and Dzyga Jazz Fest. Thanks to the kontrabass promo label, some of our works can be found on the internal radio of the video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. The single Resistance can be heard on the compilation album Aesthetic Journey into UA Jazz & Fusion, which was recorded at the Odnodumtsi bar in Kyiv.

To make a living and continue working on my own music, I collaborate with other artists, bands, and projects on a session or studio basis. Over the years, I have managed to work with many people. This includes recording keyboard parts for albums or singles for the bands Fiolet, Dno, Maria Lui Quintet, the MUR project, Moann, and VikaVishnya. I have also collaborated on concerts and tours with Ziferblat, Jerry Heil, MOVA, Fiolet, and Stas Korolyov. There’s also been some interesting one-off session work with Jamala.

Yevhenii closely follows his colleagues in the field, and his playlist is a cross-section of the most relevant global and Ukrainian music, which often goes unnoticed by the broader audience.

Yevhenii Dubovyk: I used to listen to a lot of Scandinavian jazz. That’s where I saw a good example of how to combine my two educations. I was influenced by the works of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Their pianist, Esbjörn Svensson, left behind a wonderful legacy — music at the intersection of jazz and classical. The album E.S.T. Symphony, although recorded after his death, is worth listening to. I also love British artists such as Portico Quartet and GoGoPenguin, and German artists such as Moses Yoofee Trio and MOLASS. At one time, I listened to the American pianist Brad Mehldau.

As for the Ukrainian scene, in recent years I have been actively following young indie artists and jazz-related bands. Every Friday I log into Spotify, listen to new releases, and add them to my playlists. We have more than enough material. The recording quality is not always perfect, but there are a lot of interesting ideas there. This gives me hope. As for specific names, the most interesting ones for me are Olena Karas (Tonka), Hyphen Dash, Maryan Karpinskyi Experience, Yevhen Puhachov, Andrii Barmalii, Leléka, Pokaz Trio, ZGARDA, Kryhitka, Anton Slepakov, and Maryana Golovko (SUOK). I collect these and others in my public Spotify playlist:

Who listens to jazz music today? The audience is as diverse as the genre itself, from white-collar workers to hipsters in baggy pants. The main thing is that Ukrainian products are gradually replacing Russian content, becoming higher quality, and more competitive. The Ukrainian jazz music industry is still learning to take its first steps. Musicians play well but often don’t know how to market themselves. However, Yevhenii’s optimism is contagious; he has fully assessed the European level and is confident that Ukrainians are in no way inferior and could easily compete with European jazz.

Yevhenii Dubovyk: The jazz audience is very diverse. There is “commercial jazz” (on the roof of the Central Universal Store, by candlelight). “People in suits” go there to show their social status. The music itself is less important to these people. There are young people, the “Fusion generation,” who are open-minded, looking for something new, and ready to explore. There is also an older audience, vinyl collectors who have been going to jazz concerts their whole lives. The main thing is that we release more Ukrainian products to replace Russian ones. I have become much more receptive to different styles. The main criterion is that it should be of quality and that you wouldn’t want to turn it off after a few seconds.

There is a sad statistic in Ukraine: bands live for an average of three to four years. Then they break up. Why? Musicians are taught to play, but they are not taught how to take next steps. There is a lack of management training. We had something like that in our master’s program, but it was too late in the study program and too short. It’s worth learning it earlier. It’s good that there are now special courses available (for example, Mariana Holovko at the Glier Academy, and Hanna Hadetska at the National Music Academy). Financially, it’s very difficult for jazz musicians. When it comes to streaming, Ukraine has some of the lowest rates per play. To earn royalties, you need millions of listens. In niche music, where 5-6 thousand streams are considered a success, the income is pennies (roughly 200-500 hryvnia per quarter).

Still, I am optimistic. I was with the Ukrainian delegation at Jazzahead! in Bremen. I listened to concerts there and realized that our bands are in no way inferior to European ones. If we had a better understanding of marketing, we would have been at the world level long ago.

This material was created and published thanks to a grant from Music Export Ukraine, Canada-Ukraine Fund, Aid for Artists.

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