Bio | Sasha Strunin

SASHA STRUNIN

A charismatic singer with great talent and a truly Slavic soul, Sasha Strunin was born into a multinational family with artistic experience. Father - Igor Strunin is a longtime soloist-baritone of the Grand Theatre in Poznań and her mother - Vita Nikołajenko, a favourite of Krzysztof Uvice in his opera "Ubu Król." Grandfather - Strunin Sr. was a theatre director, and her beloved grandmother Nelli - a theatrical actress.

Sasha received a thorough education in music school (piano class), received singing lessons from her operatic mother and then at the Poznań opera stage while accompanying her parents in their work and at the same time. She hones her skills in the renowned Polish vocal class of Marzena Osiewicz (lecturer of Post-graduate singer, Czesław Niemen). In January 2006, as a teenager, and together with the group The Jet Set, she appeared in the Eurovision Song Contest. The song and the music video were also presented at the music fair in Cannes. In the same year, Universal Music Polska released their debut album The Jet Set entitled "Just Call Me". The album gained the status of gold record. In 2007, The Jet Set team once again participated in the Polish qualifiers for the Eurovision Song Contest, this time winning with the song "Time to Party." As part of the promotion, the band toured throughout Europe (Spain, Ireland, Russia, Ukraine, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania).

In September 2009, her first solo studio album of the singer entitled "Sasha" was released by Sony Music. A year later, the last two singles were released promoting the album: "Stop my heart" and "I want to stop time".

Simultaneously with the release of this solo pop album, and despite its media success, Strunin decided to withdraw from the stage and began following in the footsteps of her grandfather, who studied at the Department of Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. She worked on her conceptual mini-album, which was presented as her diploma work entitled "Viscer" during the "Subconscious of events" exhibition at the Spokojna Gallery at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in October 2014. The publisher of the mini-album is Believe Digital.

In November 2014, Sasha performed at the Grand Theatre in Warsaw during the gala occasion of the "25th anniversary of Employers of the Republic of Poland". She was accompanied by the Brass Orchestra of the Music Academy Karol Szymanowski in Katowice under the baton of Krzesimir Dębski.

During the years 2015-2019, she performed on the stages of many philharmonic halls with the accompaniment of symphonic orchestras, among others The Szczecin Philharmonic under the direction of Ewa Strusińska, the Lodz Philharmonic and the Silesian Philharmonic under the baton of Sławomir Chrzanowski, the Gdańsk Philharmonic, the Podkarpacka Philharmonic and the Płock Philharmonic directed by Massimiliano Caldi.

Her premiere of the album "Woman In Black" was released by the Polish Radio Music Agency in 2017 at the Witold Lutosławski Studio. The album was highly acclaimed by music critics "Jazz Forum", "JazzPress" and many opinion weeklies. Songs for the album were specially composed for her by American jazzman Gary Guthman and recorded by renowned Polish musicians (Filip Wojciechowski - piano, Paweł Pańta-contrabass, Paweł Dobrowolski - drums, Michał Milczarek - guitar, Jacek Namysłowski - trombone and Marcin Kajper-saxophone and Gary Guthman - trumpet).

In 2017-2019, this program was presented at Summer Festival - Jerzy Waldorff in Radziejowice, Jazz All Souls, Manu Summer Jazz Sundays, Festival of the International Sanok Piano Forum, festival Arkady Sztuki, International Festival of Singer's Warsaw, Music at the Sources Festival in Bydgoszcz, "100 anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and Poland" (a special concert commissioned by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland and the US Embassy) and a special concert at the 8th edition of Global Mentoring Walk organized by Vital Voices Chapter Poland 2019 supported by the US and Israel embassies.

In June 2019, Sasha Strunin released her "Self-portraits “album on SOLITON label, composed especially for her by Gary Guthman and dedicated to the poetry of Miron Białoszewski.