ARTISTIC LIFE
Emil Borysenko is a Ukrainian harpsichordist, composer and pianist. His first important pieces date back to 2016. Since the age of 15, Emil has been involved in a diverse range of concerts in Ukraine and Germany as a composer, performer and (co-)organizer. He collaborated with Ukrainian institutions such as Collegium Musicum (UA, Lviv), Kyiv Contemporary Music Days, UNIT.City (UA, Kyiv), ГУЛ (Kyiv), GogolFest (Kyiv), National Union of Composers of Ukraine, National Music Academy of Ukraine etc.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
In 2022, the Russian invasion in Ukraine affected both the geography and intensity of Emil's artistic activity, as he had to integrate into the international artistic life in order to tell the world about Ukraine and cover such important topics as Ukrainian identity and art. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Emil is an artist-in-residence in Unerhörte Musik (concert seasons 2022 and 2023) thanks to the Senate Department for Culture and Europe Berlin. His list of collaborations has also been filling with such organizations and locations as Pohoda Festival (SK, Trenčín), Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg, Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, C. Bechstein Centrum Berlin GmbH, Open Chamber Berlin and many others. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀
The concepts of Emil's projects and concert programs focus on the themes of the post-colonial revival of Ukrainianness, the problem of insufficient visibility of Ukrainian music in international academic music industry, remembrance and cultivation of its history and construction of a new art, distinctive and free from agrarian colonial-influenced senses, alongside with preserving the primordial traditions, as well as implementation and development of baroque and modern music industry form, opened for everyone.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
In the international harpsichord heritage Emil is first and foremost interested in naturalness, spontaneity and physiology of the baroque principle; sometimes ardent, sometimes wild, sometimes saturated with frozen-detached chorales or vice versa convoluted-broken viscous rhythms and melodic lines.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Emil’s author’s music is filled with references to the modern Ukrainian poetry and politics, it impersonates whisper and shout of the nation and the person’s sensuality, transformative identity and personal will to face both external fears and, first of all, one’s own shadow against their background.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Shadow is a personification of what is hiding behind us, what lies in the shade of consciousness, what is immense, frightening and potential.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
After developing his own musical language, Emil embodies the leading images of his sphere of reflection and objects of interest in his compositions.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Starting from 2022, Emil Borysenko often performed in a duo with a Ukrainian electronic music artist and composer Olexi Nykolaiv (Kyiv | Berlin). ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The collaboration of Olexi and Emil is centred around the topics of science fiction and existentialist philosophy with Death, Fate and Alienness as main figures. Being inspired by as wide diversity of references as from 17th-century baroque to psychedelic rock, industrial and hyperpop, they convey the topics of darkness, grandiosity, liminality, alienation, physicality and eternal transformation, using piano and live electronics. Knowing each other since the time of their middle school, they converged upon their interests in the philosophical ideas, which now became the basis of their common project.
EDUCATION
Emil Borysenko studied composition with Alla Zagaykevych and Oleksandr Shchetynskyi at the Kyiv Lysenko State Music Lyceum. Emil studied piano with Ukrainian-German pianist Eugen Rzhanov for a bachelor's degree at the Glier Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music, where he became interested in the harpsichord and historical instruments in general, and began to study the harpsichord with Olena Zhukova and, later, Anna Kilchytska.
Since 2022 he has been also improving his professional skills at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin and The Anton Rubinstein International Music Academy Berlin.