Jazz Poetry Month: Vadim Neselovskyi "Odesa - A Musical Walk Through a Legendary City"

Odesa: A Musical Walk Through a Legendary City plays like a theater piece, using melodies, rhythms, and multimedia projections to fully immerse the audience into the work. Rich with melodic tunes, folk music, jazz, and sprinklings of classical music for which Neselovskyi first gained prominence, this concert is a celebration and honoring of Ukraine’s important cultural heritage.

Featured artist:

A child prodigy in still-Soviet Ukraine, Vadim Neselovskyi became the youngest student to be accepted into the famed Odesa Conservatory. At the same time that he was honing his classical virtuosity, he became captivated by jazz sounds. He moved to the United States to study at Berklee College of Music, where was selected by Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Terence Blanchard to attend the Thelonious Monk Institute. Whether as a pianist, a composer, an improviser, a soloist or a bandleader, Vadim Neselovskyi creates music that is truly inspired and wholly unique. The Los Angeles Times has praised Neselovskyi’s “extraordinary playing” while The Guardian (UK) has called him “the most promising of the young improvisers.” All About Jazz recognized his singular versatility, referring to him as “a strong pianist [as well as] a composer who blends form and freedom in new ways.”