The latest release, "Cosmic Calendar," by Ukrainian pianist and composer Marina Baranova, highlights her versatile musical prowess. Raised in a household where classical music was taught by her mother and jazz & composition by her father, Baranova was exposed to contrasting musical worlds from an early age, cultivating her skills in improvisation. A highly gifted pianist, she honed her craft in her hometown of Kharkiv (Ukraine) and later at the University of Hanover (Germany), playing with a natural ease. Baranova possesses a synesthetic talent, allowing her to perceive sounds as colors, adding a unique dimension to her music.

"Cosmic Calendar" serves as both a philosophical contemplation on the universe's creation and a profound exploration of Marina Baranova's inner thoughts. Comprising a piece for each month of the year, the album traces the cosmic history, from the Big Bang to the emergence of life. "Each month stands for a significant milestone and at the same time shows parallels to personal development," writes the composer in the album's booklet, explaining further: "It describes different phases, such as the liberation of limitless possibilities through the Big Bang (Particles of Freedom), the cooling down process (Becoming Transparent) leading to clear perspectives, self-knowledge (The Inner Gravity), a sense of "flow" amidst countless possibilities (Gliding on the Milky Way), the abandonment of beliefs and the feeling of sadness (Requiem for a Supernova), to the birth of hope (Birth of the Sun), the romantic dance of the earth and the moon (Celestial Serenade), the formation of the vital ozone layer (Air) and finally the emergence of humanity (You and me and everything around us)."

Pianist Marina Baranova looks at Christmas through the eyes of an outsider. "I was born into a Jewish family in Ukraine and am the great-granddaughter of a rabbi. So I've never celebrated Christmas before, which allows me to look at it from the outside." On her new album "White Letters" she makes her experiences audible. "This album reflects those sensations." In her unique musicality, which combines light-fingered virtuosity with compositional sensitivity, she creates a world between Christian melodies, Ukrainian winter tunes and the Jewish festival of lights sounds.

All works oscillate between original, sensitive arrangement and free improvisation. "My recording somewhat resembles a playlist that makes my personal perception of the winter mood audible. Famous Christmas pieces from the classical period meet my own compositions, works by Ukrainian composers meet pieces by Jewish tone poets such as Ernest Bloch, Rosy Wertheim and Grigory Frid, which symbolize the Hanukkah festival of lights for me," says the composer and pianist, who was born in Kharkiv and now lives in Hanover. The bandwidth of the album's works cuts a wide swath: from Bach-ian borrowings combined with "There's Always Tomorrow" by Jewish composer Johnny Marks to the originally Ukrainian (and now world-famous) Christmas carol "Carol of the Bells" to her own compositions, such as "Homeland," which she dedicates to her hometown.

Marina Baranova knows a thing or two about conjuring fantastical worlds. Since her childhood when she’d sit with her fairy tale books open in front of the piano translating the pictures she saw into sound worlds up to her last album, where she envisioned a darker side to Debussy, the Ukrainian composer and pianist’s imagination has always played an active role in the music she plays. For her latest release, 'Atlas of Imaginary Places', she lets it run the show. For it, Baranova worked with the Danish visual artist Christian Gundtoft and Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Kompaniets to conceive more than just an album. “I wanted to create this alternative listening experience,” she explains, “Don’t underestimate the power of imagination, now more than ever, it’s important to remember we have this treasure within us.”

With “Unfolding Debussy”, Baranova has created so much more than a simple homage to one of the greatest composers of the 19th and 20th Centuries. She’s given his work new meaning, uncovering hidden aspects and deeper connections, revealing the very human fragility behind the legend.

“It’s for people who are open minded and already in love with classical music, but also for people who don’t know anything about it,” she says. “I would appreciate it if they listened and asked themselves: ‘What do the originals sound like?’” Nearly a hundred years after his death, “Unfolding Debussy” hopes to inspire a new generation of music lovers and ensure that his sensory majesty is not lost to the drifting sands of time. Even after all this time, the cultural titan can still conjure a million colours in the mind.

Marina Baranova is a classically-trained concert pianist whose interests span out much further than that. The idea for the Hypersuites came to her during a DJ session. She came to the conclusion that DJ scratches were really nothing more than the modern form of Baroque musical ornamentations. So the logical conclusion was to add an additional tone colour to the hypersuites: electronic editing of Baranova’s version for solo instrument.

Marina’s latest program is based on the graceful music of baroque period - original works by Handel, Rameau and Bach provide a foundation for improvisations and deeply personal reinterpretations. Combining classical music structures with jazz gestures and modern pop references, she creates audacious hybrids which are driven by reviving the baroque art of ornamental extemporization and a curiosity about new narrative possibilities that grow out of the interweaving between contemporary music styles and antique masterpieces.

Baranova and Coskun met for the first time on the occasion of recordings with the legendary Giora Feidman. This coincidence led to the creation of a duo program in wich the audience literally can hear a spark jump over between piano and frame drums. Baranova and Coskun offer rhythm, groove and melodies and turn their audience into enthousiastic companions on an extraordinary musical journey (...)

Robert Schumann, ein glühender Phönix: seine Seele verbrennt, um aus der Asche wieder zu erstehen... In Florestan, Eusebius, Chiara, Meister Raro, Estrella - in all diesen Davidsbündlern ist Schumann zu finden, in allen ist er vollkommen, immer aber auch unvollendet. Jeder Gedanke von ihm ist ein Fragment mit drei Punkten am Ende... Und dann stürmisch weiter.

-- Marina Baranova, 2012