As a composer, singer and instrumentalist, she is an artist of the highest calibre who lives and loves music in all its facets.
With her works, she creates captivating and profound soundscapes that take all listeners on an emotional journey.
Her compositions are a mixture of creativity, innovation and technical sophistication. They expand the boundaries of music and explore new horizons, but Tamara Lukasheva is not only impressive as a composer.
With her extraordinary voice, which can sound both powerful and delicate, she imbues her songs with a magic all of their own. She tells stories that move us all, travelling through the world full of curiosity and with alert senses. Music is her mother tongue — and her means of processing impressions, encounters, everyday life and world events. And to create something new that in turn touches other people; across borders and musical categories.
Tamara Lukasheva was born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1988. Between 2003 and 2007, she studied at the conservatory in Odessa, and between 2010 and 2015 at the University of Music and Dance in Cologne, where she now lives.
Current projects
In her solo project, she sets German and Ukrainian poetry to music. She is a singer, composer and pianist in equal measure and founded a quartet with Sebastian Scobel (piano), Jakob Kühnemann (bass) and Dominik Mahning (drums) during her studies in Cologne. In 2019 Lucas Leidinger replaced Sebastian Scobel on piano and in 2022 Mathieu Clement replaced Dominik on drums, and in 2021 she founded her new trio with Laurent Derache from France on accordion and Calvin Lennig on double bass. The trio plays compositions and arrangements by Tamara
She is also active in several other collaborations:
- INSO Lviv (International Symphony Orchestra Lviv) as author of a programme consisting of her own compositions and orchestrations
- Duo with Vadim Neselovskyi as a singer
- Hans Lüdemann Trio Ivoire as a guest soloist
- Matthias Schriefl as the Duo Matria
- Markus Stockhausen as a guest soloist
- Martin Hafizi with his Half Easy Trio as a guest soloist
- several recordings with Bodek Jahnke
- part of the Hard Boiled Wonderland project (German Jazz Award 2022) with Sebastian Gramss
- several performances with Jens Düppe, Brian Seeger, Roger Hanschel and other important musicians of the European and international jazz scene.
2012-2013
1st prise at the 6th International Jazz Vocal Competition in Finsterwalder, Germany.
Becomes regular member of Bujazzo, the National Youth Jazz Orcherstra of Germany.
Tour in Central America with the “Matthias Schriefl Trio”.
Collaborative projects with WDR Big Band, MAO (Modern Art Orchestra, Hungary) and the UdK Big Band, Berlin.
2014—2015
The Tamara Lukasheva Quartett wins the “Young German Jazz Prize Osnabrück’’ (Junger Deutscher Jazz Preis 2014).
The Tamara Lukasheva Quartett wins the second-place prize at the “Keep an Eye Jazz Awards Amsterdam”.
2016—2017
First Place at Composition and Arrangement Competition for Bujazzo Big Band. A collaborative project with Odessa’s Symphony Orchestra. One month study in Carnatic School of traditional indian music in Bangalore, India.
The Tamara Lukasheva Quartett wins the New German Jazz Prize Mannheim 2017 (Neuer Deutscher Jazz Preis Mannheim 2017, the only German jazz prize that is awarded by public vote). Tamara also receives a solo prize.
Festivals in Kasakhstan, Ukraine, Austria and Germany.
2018—2019
Horst und Gretl Will Stipendium for Jazz and Improvising Music Cologne as “extraordinarily variable and imaginative musician” and Cologne Jazz Award.
Becomes a part of NICA Artist Development.
Lecturer for jazz singing at the Institute for Music in Osnabrück (ongoing engagement).
Festivals in Moldowa, Albania, Pakistan and Austria.
2020—2021
WDR Jazz Prize in the category composition.
Collaboration with INSO Lviv - Internation Sympony Orchestra Lviv, Solo Album CD release, Festivals in Bulgary, Germany and Ukraine.
2022—2023
Silver Tuning Fork of the Landesmusikrat NRW (award for special accomplishments to musical life in NRW).
Discography
Kusimanten
Studiokonzert
Neuklang, 2021
Tamara Lukasheva Solo
Gleichung
WismART, 2021
Tamara Lukasheva Quartett
Homebridge
Traumton, 2019
Eurasians Unity
Enja/Yellowbird, 2018
Duo Lit — Lukasheva/Mahnig
Das ist Deine Zeit… und die läuft
Fuhrwerk, 2018
Kusimanten
Bleib ein Mensch
Leo Records, 2017
Tamara Lukasheva Quartett
Patchwork Of Time
Next Generation/Double Moon Records, 2016
Matthias Schriefl & Tamara Lukasheva
Matria
Unit Records, 2015
Productions
Duo Horizon
with Roksana Smirnova
2010
East Drive “Folksongs 2” (as a guest)
Bauer Studio
East Drive “Children Song” (as a guest)
2016