Ukrainian singer Khrystyna Soloviy doesn’t play to the rules of the pop music business. She refuses to appear half-naked in music videos, and doesn’t sing what she calls “commercial” songs – simple and catchy tunes.
She prefers to show off her talent via traditional Ukrainian folk songs, and her musical strategy is working: the songs of this 23-year-old star are popular on Ukrainian radio stations, and her videos have been going viral online.
The secret to Soloviy’s success may lie in her emotional performance and a strong voice, which captures listeners from the very first bar of music.
“My audience is very diverse, and I’m especially happy to see lots of young people among my fans,” Soloviy says as she sips tea during an interview with the Kyiv Post on Dec. 5 in a Kyiv café.
Soloviy, a tiny young woman with dark brown hair, looks more like a teenager than a pop diva. She is now making her first steps in Ukrainian show business. Her music videos “Trymay” (“Hold Me”) and “Pod Oblachkom” (“Under a Cloud”) together got more than 8 million views on YouTube.
Her debut album “Zhyva Voda” (“Live Water”), which came out in 2015 includes only two of her own songs – the rest are folk songs of the Lemkos, a small ethnic sub-group inhabiting the Carpathian Mountains.
Soloviy says her songs are popular with the foreign audience, too.
“I receive lots of compliments from abroad. Foreigners ask me for a translation (of the songs) and say these songs are something incredible,” Soloviy says.
Besides her talent, Soloviy owes her success to her producer – Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, a lead vocalist and founder of Ukraine’s popular band Okean Elzy.
“He feels what the audience wants very well. That’s why he is a number one musician in Ukraine,” Soloviy says.
Three years ago Soloviy didn’t even dream of becoming a pop singer. She was born in Drohobych, a town in Lviv Oblast into a family of choral conductors, graduated from Ivan Franko Lviv University, and was set to become a Ukrainian philologist.
But her passion for music and for Lemko folk songs in particular led her to participate in the Ukrainian version of the show “The Voice” in 2013, where she was noticed by Vakarchuk, one of the four judges.
Soloviy, who comes from a Lemko family, has listened to the Lemko folk songs all her life. Now she says it is her goal to make these songs popular in Ukraine and abroad.
When she performed a Lemko song at “The Voice,” it made Vakarchuk cry. After the show, he came up to her and offered to help her record an album of Lemko songs. Soloviy was over the moon.
“It was one of the happiest moments of my life,” she says.
But that wasn’t all. Vakarchuk convinced Soloviy that she should write songs herself, as well as perform the folk songs.
“Before that I had written only one song, ‘Trymay,’” she says. “Now I have more than 20 of my own songs waiting to be recorded.”
In the autumn of 2015 she moved to Kyiv from Lviv. She does not like to talk about her personal life, but says she still doesn’t have a lot of friends in town and feels homesick for Lviv. “When I have a spare minute, I go to Lviv,” she adds.
However, Soloviy’s schedule is now very busy, and leaves her little time to be down. She is preparing for her first concert tour of five Ukrainian cities – Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Lviv and Kyiv – which starts in February.
Soloviy is also working on her second album, which will include mostly her own songs and two Lemko folk songs.
“I dream that one day I will play a concert with a symphony orchestra. I would like to travel more, ideally giving concerts,” she says.
