Piano and Voice Recital
Cultural dialogue – connecting traditions across centuries.
Yuliya Shpyg – Soprano
Ukrainian opera and concert singer, and researcher.
Having earned a bachelor’s degree from the Conducting and Choral Department of the prestigious L. Revutsky Music College in Chernihiv, Yuliya Shpyg completed her Master’s in Opera Singing at the National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kyiv.
Yuliya worked at the National Opera of Ukraine, performing as Natalka Poltavka in Ivan Kotliarevsky’s acclaimed opera of the same name. She continues to work as a vocal teacher and researcher at the highly regarded National Music Academy of Ukraine.
As passionate about opera and contemporary art as she is experienced as a musician, Yuliya has performed for years on stages across Europe and the UK in international musical projects. Her repertoire spans from Baroque to modern fusion arrangements. She collaborates with renowned Ukrainian saxophonist Roman Fotuima on various projects.
A skilled singer and pianist, Yuliya brings romantic creativity to all her performances.
As Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Ukrainian Foundation, she supports young Ukrainian musicians and creative projects.
Olga Paliy – Piano
At the age when young children dream about what they want to be, Olga Paliy never thought of not being a musician. In her final school year, at the age of 14, she gave two personal recitals in the same week: one as a pianist and one as a singer. A spark ignited. Competition successes followed, including audience-vote prizes, en route to Olga’s Europe-wide career of public concerto, chamber and solo performance, and international lecturing.
Originally from Ukraine, Olga is a London-based pianist, teacher and an established researcher of polyphonic music. In 2004 Olga was awarded a Presidential Scholarship for the Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music in Kyiv, Ukraine, graduating in 2006 under the expert tutelage of Valery Kozlov. From there she went on to the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester to study with the inspirational Norma Fisher. In 2017, she became the RNCM’s first student to receive a PhD in Performance, under the primary supervision of David Horne.
On stage, Olga plays the classical piano mainstream and contemporary composers, covering a wide repertoire from Bach and Scarlatti to Carl Vine and James MacMillan. Her solo concert programmes are intelligently and informatively imagined. She has had the pleasure of being a soloist with Kyiv Municipal Symphony Orchestra, Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, Dnipro Philharmonic Orchestra, Manchester Beethoven Orchestra, and Worthing Symphony Orchestra, performing concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Ravel and Prokofiev. As well as around UK and Ukraine, her concert career has taken her to Hungary, Czech Republic, Latvia, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Spain and Australia.
Since 2021 Olga has been working in collaboration with London-based violinist of Polish origin – Kamila Bydlowska.
Off stage, Olga is an Artistic Trustee co-driving the British charity, International Music in Performance & Education Foundation (IMPEF), and a judge at the annual Riga International Competition for Young Pianists.