MY NAME IS MILANA AND I AM A BRADFORD-BASED SOPRANO, SESSION VOCALIST, IMPROVISER, PROJECT CURATOR, AND VOICE TEACHER.
Opera was my first language.
From an early age, I was drawn to the operatic repertoire — to its athletic vocal demands and its almost divine aesthetic architecture. Opera requires both discipline and surrender: the body must endure, the technique must sustain, and yet the result must feel effortless, inevitable. That paradox has shaped my artistic life.
My formal training at the Royal Academy of Music deepened this fascination. There, I learned not only the craft of singing but the organism of theatre itself — its rhythm, its hierarchies, its invisible ecosystems. Preparing a role in isolation, studying the score line by line, and then stepping into the rehearsal room is like watching a puzzle assemble in real time. Suddenly, individual work becomes collective architecture. You are no longer alone with the music; you are part of a living structure of ideas, decisions, personalities, and shared risk.
My operatic repertoire has included Elisabetta (Roberto Devereux), Najad (Ariadne auf Naxos), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Emilie (Les Indes Galantes), Mlle Silberklang (Der Schauspieldirektor), Norina (Don Pasquale), and Micaëla (Carmen). Each role expanded my understanding of voice as character — not only sound, but psychology, gesture, and presence.
In February 2022, I travelled to Vilnius with a simple question: what is improvisation? That question altered the direction of my work. There, I created my first semi-staged experimental performance, The Artist is Present 2.0: Musical Response, inspired by Marina Abramović’s iconic durational work at Museum of Modern Art. The piece premiered at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Drama’s Balkonas Theatre and later travelled to venues in London and Düsseldorf. It marked the moment when opera and improvisation began to coexist fully in my practice.
Since then, I have continued to explore improvisation within theatrical frameworks, collaborating with artists across the UK and Europe, developing extended vocal techniques, and building my own methods of producing interdisciplinary work.
Among my projects:
Verbo I Voda — a performance merging sustainable theatre fashion and reimagined Ukrainian folk music into an eight-song cycle examining patriarchal structures and the role of women.
KINK — a musical storytelling work exploring fetish, desire, and taboo in collaboration with guitarist Christoph Gotzen.
PERISONIK — a project for soprano and electronics reinterpreting a madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi, originally written for bass voice, challenging fixed notions of “tradition” in classical music and asserting the multiplicity of interpretation.
Constantly searching for new ways to communicate — both on stage and in recording — I have learned to push my own boundaries, question inherited beliefs, and reinvent creative processes. Reinvention, for me, is not rupture; it is continuation.
After relocating to Bradford and Leeds, I immersed myself in what the landscape offered: songwriting and jazz. Engaging with artists from these scenes expanded my vocabulary once again. Each collaboration reshapes perception; each encounter alters sound. My journey continues to unfold between opera and experiment, structure and spontaneity, discipline and risk — always guided by the voice as both instrument and storyteller.
OPERA + IMPROVISATION
CONTEMPORARY CHAMBER MUSIC
ART SONG +
My journey began in 2003 in Kerch, Crimea.
A classmate pulled me into what she promised would be “something fun.” Moments later, I found myself standing in front of a choir, singing “Arlekino” by Alla Pugacheva as an audition piece.
The teacher asked me:
“Why do you want to be here?”
I answered, without hesitation:
“I want to find purpose in life.”
I was eight years old.
That day I was accepted to the Serduk School of Art, Music and Dance with a scholarship — and without fully understanding it, I had already chosen my path.
My deep love for art song emerged years later while working on The Nursery by Modest Mussorgsky and the romances of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. I still remember the sensation of unfolding the poetry — carefully unwrapping its emotional and psychological layers. Interpretation felt both exhilarating and fragile: just as one meaning seemed clear, it dissolved, demanding a new perspective. That instability fascinated me. It taught me that interpretation is alive.
Over time, recitals became a central part of my artistic identity. My performances have been presented at venues including Glazunov Concert Hall and Fyodor Chaliapin Museum, the Encuentro de la Música de Santander Festival in Spain, David Josefowitz Recital Hall, Angela Burgess Recital Hall, and the Cologne University of Applied Sciences.
My devotion to art song gradually expanded into vocal chamber repertoire and later into contemporary chamber music. Collaboration became essential. Together with pianist Amiran Zenaishvili, I developed and presented Russian art song programmes to UK audiences. With composer and pianist Julian Gallant, I co-created recital programmes that challenged traditional interpretations by introducing new sonic palettes and structural perspectives.
These collaborations eventually led me to create recital programmes for voice and cello with cellist and composer Ben Finlay — projects that placed Russian poetry within the framework of contemporary global composition. The programme included works by John Tavener and Elena Langer, as well as a specially commissioned piece, Gratitude, by Brazilian composer Bernardo Simões, based on a poem by Mikhail Lermontov. The concert premiered in 2019 at Airton Friends Meeting House.
Looking back, I realise that what began as a child’s search for “purpose” became a lifelong dialogue with poetry, music, and interpretation. Art song taught me intimacy. Chamber music taught me listening. Collaboration taught me humility. And each stage — from Kerch to international recital halls — shaped the voice I continue to develop today.
EPILOGUE
Music as life direction
It has its ups and downs, its heroes and villains and of course its plot twists. The events in the past brought me to where I am now: a member of the London Improvisers Orchestra, Opera Integra, collaboration with Julian on Lieder recital programmes, curating series of improv concerts in Düsseldorf and Antwerp with Christopher Götzen, as well as the improv club ‘THE POOL’ at The Tower Theater (UK/London) with John Bisset.
