A while ago, I was writing my monthly listings for the North America edition of Gramophone when, in working on a piece about the Minnesota Orchestra’s Composer Institute, I discovered Polina Nazaykinskaya thanks to works posted on WQXR and the University of Texas Composition Department. Polina’s the kind of person you simultaneously love and hate; her command of the orchestral form is disarming and reminiscent of the likes of Shostakovich, Glazunov and Korngold. She’s also a zygote. As such, her youthful ardor and honesty shows, but it’s matched by a probing maturity that the 26-year-olds playing teenagers on TV could only dream of achieving. She’s unabashed with a lot to say, the tools to say it and the intelligence not to say it all at once. It’s hard not to envy her for that. Admittedly, I’m a Russophile and a sucker for a wintry soul, but in a time like this where snow falls on days that end in “y,” I’ll happily take some Polina with my mulled wine and new translation of Doctor Zhivago. More like this, please.
