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Victoria Poleva

b. 1962 · Ukraine

Victoria Poleva, composer

Victoria Poleva was born in 1962 into a musical family. She studied composition under Ivan Karabyts (1984–1989) and Levko Kolodub (1990–1995) at Kyiv Conservatory, where she taught composition from 1990–2005. Her early works employed avant-garde and polystylistic approaches; since the late 1990s she has focused on “sacred minimalism,” drawing on spiritual themes. She has been composer-in-residence at the Menhir Chamber Music Festival (Switzerland, 2006), Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival (Austria, 2011), and the Darwin Vargas Festival of Contemporary Music (Chile, 2013).

OrchestralChoralVocalChamber

Performed at UCMF

Songs of Innocence

UCMF 2021 · Voices of the New Millennium · Mar 5 · 2002–2012 · Vocal

song cycle on poems by William Blake, for voice, clarinet and accordion

Performed by Jennifer Gliere (Voice), Lucie Vítková (Accordion), Gleb Kanasevich (Clarinet)

A song cycle for soprano, clarinet, and accordion, this work is an original setting of the poems by Romantic English poet and painter William Blake (1757–1827). The composer wanted to present the image of the world in its innocence and pure freshness. Her music strives for outer transparency, simplicity and tragic, inexplicable meaning. The poems set are The Blossom, Infant Sorrow, Infant Joy and The Fly, from Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience cycles. Poleva has also set works by Simeon the New Theologian, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Joseph Brodsky and other poets to music. She made the following comments on her interaction with these texts: “I often rely on the culture and figures of the past. It is difficult to imagine creative work without such encounters. What really occurs is the transfer of spirit from one mouth to another. A continuity of the fire.”

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Music for Temo

UCMF 2021 · Voices of the New Millennium · Mar 5 · 2018 · Chamber

in honor of Ukrainian-Georgian artist Temo Svireli

Performed by Adrienne Munden-Dixon (Violin), Carrie Frey (Viola), Helen Newby (Cello), Margarita Rovenskaya (Piano)

Music for Temo was written in honor of Temo Svireli, a Ukrainian artist of Georgian descent who lived and worked in Kyiv and died in 2014. He was a great friend of the composer.

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The Sea of Faith

UCMF 2025 · From Kontraktova Square · Mar 14 · Vocal · American premiere

US premiere; words by Matthew Arnold

Performed by Hans Tashjian (Bass-baritone), Jason Wirth (Piano)

“I found this poem by Matthew Arnold in Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. Even as a child I was struck by the image of humanity as a horde of blind men fighting in the dark on the battlefield. My music is a request to return humanity to man. That is why it cannot be performed as an elegy — it must convey grief and despair, and very little hope, but it is there. The voice and piano must merge into one instrument with a common breath… The coda should not be played as piano music; it should be almost unreal. The title is translated in Fahrenheit 451 as ‘The Ocean of Trust,’ and I like that better than ‘The Sea of Faith,’ but let it be as in the original poem.” (Victoria Polevá)

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Selected works

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