Tatiana Riabinkina: No War

Tatiana Riabinkina started composing when as a child. She grew up in Yekaterinburg, Russia, but moved to Moscow to study music more seriously, and in 2013, she graduated from the Moscow College of Improvisational Music, as a bass player. In 2018, she received a Diploma with Excellence from the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music as a Composer and Music Teacher. Five years ago, she moved to New Zealand where in 2019 she received a Postgraduate Diploma in Music at Victoria University in Wellington. Today she works as a music teacher at Opihi College (Temuka), and as a composer for international projects from all over the world. She also performs as a bass guitar player for local projects, orchestras, and theatrical performances. She has won a number of International Awards in Composition and Instrumentation and has scored about 12 films. Many of these films have been screened at different film festivals and other cultural events around the world. Ms. Riabinkina is a member of the Composers Association of New Zealand.

According to the composer, “The No War quartet was written when the war in Ukraine just started. This music came out substituting the night sleep, because the first days of the war were too stressful for me to close my eyes. I finished this piece in just one and half days. I had never worked so fast! It quotes an old Ukrainian song. The repeating dissonant exclamation has three syllables in Russian: “Нет войне” — that means “No war” in English. After this, I lost the chance to go home because I could be arrested for this in Russia.”