NEW RELEASE: “The Star of Mendelssohn”

As winter approaches and warm lights begin to glow in the windows, a season of reflection and music unfolds for many. For Marina Baranova—born in Kharkiv and at home in Germany for many years—Christmas is far more than a festive occasion. It is a moment when cultures, traditions, and personal histories converge. With her new album The Star of Mendelssohn, she invites listeners to step onto this bridge between worlds and to rediscover Mendelssohn from a fresh perspective.

Baranova’s musical roots are as diverse as they are vivid. From an early age, she experienced music as a universal language. Raised in the Eastern European piano tradition and surrounded by Bach, Mozart, jazz, and blues at home, she developed the openness that continues to shape her artistic voice today. Christmas itself was once unfamiliar to her; her Jewish background and Soviet upbringing long kept the holiday at a distance. It was only through her children that Christmas became a lived, personal experience. “For me, Christmas is a celebration of love with utopian potential,” Baranova says. “It is a time when people draw closer, empathy and understanding grow, and opposites can be reconciled.”

This experience of living between cultures mirrors the life of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy himself. Born into a Jewish family but raised as a Protestant, Mendelssohn spent his life navigating multiple identities. His music, deeply rooted in German Romanticism, also carries traces of his Jewish heritage—a tension that gains particular resonance during the Christmas season. “Mendelssohn’s music feels like a light between worlds to me,” Baranova explains. “It brings together celebration, intimacy, and spirituality, while always remaining open to new perspectives.”

With The Star of Mendelssohn, Baranova embarks on an extraordinary musical experiment. She intertwines Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words with traditional Christmas carols, allowing melodies such as What Child Is This?and Adeste Fideles to flow seamlessly into Mendelssohn’s musical language through improvisation. “It was fascinating to discover how naturally these pieces connect,” she recalls. “At times, it felt as if they had always belonged together.” The opening track is particularly striking: a reimagining of Rachmaninoff’s piano transcription of the A Midsummer Night’s Dream scherzo, into which she weaves eight well-known Christmas songs—a playful and airy “Midwinter Night’s Dream.”

Yet the album is more than a collection of inventive arrangements. It is a statement about music’s power to build bridges between cultures. Baranova improvises on Mendelssohn’s choral works, paraphrases the Drinking Song after Goethe in the spirit of Liszt, and allows Hark! The Herald Angels Sing to shine anew through a Mendelssohnian lens. Throughout, she remains unmistakably herself—pianist, composer, improviser, and synesthete, transforming sounds into colors and discovering new worlds within every tone.

“I believe music can help us recognize what connects us, even when we come from different traditions,” Baranova says. “Especially at Christmas, I feel how close Jewish Hanukkah and the Christian holiday truly are—both celebrate light, hope, and togetherness.” Her album is more than a tribute to Mendelssohn; it is a plea for openness, empathy, and the transformative power of art.

Listening to The Star of Mendelssohn reveals a Christmas album that goes far beyond the familiar. It unites the festive warmth and spiritual depth of the season with the radiant music of a composer whose life and work were shaped by the search for identity and reconciliation. Marina Baranova offers listeners a new way of hearing Mendelssohn—and a renewed vision of what Christmas, at its best, can be: a celebration that connects us all.