Alla Lowery

My destiny was to deal with music before I was born. My mother was a student of the piano department of Kazan State Conservatoire (Kazan, Russia) when she was expecting me to come into this world. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------ I believe the very first musical impression I had was Sonata-Reminiscence by Nikolay Metner. My mother was studying this music while she was pregnant. To this day I still consider this music absolutely magical. There are few pieces in the world which can take your heart and mind away completely as this one does. ------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------- My musical education began at the age of 4. My mother was my first teacher. At the age of 5, Mom sent me to a music school. My first professional Music College diploma was earned after 14 years of study. Then, after 5 years of advanced study, I graduated from Kazan State Conservatoire. During my time as a student many interesting things were happening. My generation of Russian classical musicians was very romantic and had a wide range of interests. We went crazy about literature, arts, theater, and cinematograph. We tried to be everywhere we could, attend all jazz concerts, all the best movies, all the exhibitions. All these influences and new experiences we brought back to the center, the sound of one’s instrument. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ For the next 25 years after graduation my destiny offered me all kinds of opportunities to try every single genre of classical music. I was on faculty at music colleges in Lithuania and Russia as a piano teacher for 15 years, performed in a piano ensemble, accompanied choirs, played in chamber ensembles of all kinds with all the instruments – strings, wind, brass and percussion. I worked 10 years as a pianist at the Yaroslavl Academy Governor’s Symphony Orchestra, Yaroslavl, Russia, also performing on the celesta, harpsichord and synthesizer in numerous programs of the orchestra. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ My first compositions occurred at the age of 12, funny little songs with accompaniment. I had two girlfriends; at that time we lived in the same apartment house, our mothers worked together at the same Theater of Music Comedy, we went to the same music school and we liked to compose music together. We ended up on our local TV channel performing in a program about us and our songs. ------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------- My passion for the synthesizers began in 1997, when my symphony orchestra obtained its first Ensoniq. My first experiments in electronic composing were original little pieces and transcriptions of different children’s songs (at that time I also worked as a music teacher in pre-school groups at the College for Little Ones in Yaroslavl). This experiment was a success, and I continued composing music in different styles on the synth. ------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- I fell in love with Vollenweider and Vangelis, Jean-Michelle Jarre and Gabrielle Roth, Deep Forest and Enigma, but never tried to imitate them; they were very bright and individual. I was also completely in love with the music of cinematograph. I always liked beautiful harmonies and clearly edged forms. In my own pieces I try to merge well-balanced classical forms with different light genres and modern technology. The term “Electronic Art Music” in Wiki expresses exactly what I am trying to accomplish. Experimenting with classical pieces on the synthesizer was very rewarding. The fantastic sounds of a synthesizer are perfect for telling musical stories. The music should be intriguing and have the effect of carrying the listener away. ------------------------------------------------------------ --------- After arriving in America in 2005, I began to work as an accompanist at a ballet school. In a year I printed a book of 27 pieces for ballet classes named “The Elements of Ballet”. Many of my musician-friends advised me that the pieces should be played as they are, not only for ballet classes. So, I transcribed some of them for piano ensemble and re-arranged others for the synthesizer. Then I was asked to record some of them as minus-ones so they could be used with a soloist in a live performance. The story is to be continued… :-)