Masha Stepina Jazz trio

Masha Stepina-piano( Russia-Netherlands)

Wim Essed-bass(Netherlands)

Hans van Oosterhout

Masha Stepina is a young Russian pianist and composer who started piano lessons when six years old, both parents being accomplished musicians.

At the Rostov college of Arts in her hometown Rostov-on-Don, she later studied classic and jazz theory and graduated with "Variety Musical Art Theory Teacher", and "Variety Orchestras and Ensemble Leader" qualifications.

Although doubting to concentrate on classical or jazz piano when taking up her advanced studies at the S.V.Rakhmaninov Conservatory, she entered in the end as a theory student and after five years of intensive studies with the best teachers in the south of the country , graduated with several more qualifications: "Musicologist-Teacher" and "Music Life Organizerâ in the Speciality of Musicology. Also in this time she started composing jazz songs.

During this period she took up teaching at the Rostov College of Arts as a theory teacher, with duties in music history, piano and jazz-ensemble departments, among other subjects as well.

At the same time she developed and published a few educational programs for use in music colleges.

Outside the college she was teaching small children from the age of four at the Music School for Gifted Children, apart from working in several regular music schools.

But after seven years of teaching, playing the piano as a main occupation became more and more tempting and after much doubt Masha decided to give up her quite successful career in education and decided to come to Holland and study jazz piano.

There she studied with Johan Clement and Rob van Bavel and received her Bachelor Degree at the Rotterdam Conservatory in 2006, after which she went on to a Master study at the Maastricht/Tilburg Conservatory which she has successfully graduated in 2008. There Masha took lessons with Rob van Bavel, Kris Goessens, Randal Corsen, Jeroen van Vliet, Martin Fondse and Bart van Dongen.

During that education Masha had a great experience with following master-classes of John Taylor, Barry Harris, Harold Danko, Antonio Farat, Mike Garson, Frans Elsen.

Since 2007 Masha works as a piano accompanist at the Rotterdam Dance Academy of Contemporary Art.

In 2007-2008 she has got produced by the MuziekLab Brabant for a project "ContemporaryOrthodox" - Russian folklore traditions through a prism of contemporary art. This project gave Masha great opportunity to present herself as pianist, composer, producer, performer, organizer.

Double bassist Wim Essed and drummer Hans van Oosterhout are both seasoned performers and educators;after all ,Masha met them at the Rotterdam Conservatory,where they have been working for many years.They bring along a great deal of empathy and imaginatory playing,which adds to the atmospheric peculiarity of the music,but respecting the intrinsic flavour of the compositions.

Trio is working , not so much on changing , but looking deeper into possibilities of creating different musical strata and approaches in the traditional trio set up.

The trio performs original material from Masha's pen. When listening to her compositions one will experience a wealth of musical legacy as well as glimpses of things yet to come. Besides the obvios jazz and pop connections there is a clear classic heritage; one can detect influences from Bach to the great Late Romantic Russian composers like Skriabin and Rachmaninov . Just as well one could point at the unusual structures and sometimes special , but clear forms of the pieces, the impressionistic and expressionistic ways of musical development and improvisations or the multi - layered and counterpointed way of interpretation.

The sound of the trio can thus vary from agitated and busy ( Modern Life) to stillness and restraint evocating a wide Russian Landscape in winter( January, White Spaces). Anyhow, the music has quite a bit of describing and colorful aspects and as such often feels like the soundtrack for an until now unmade movie. A movie that would clearly need some nostalgic and longing scenes to fit to the sound of the Masha Stepina piano trio.

Brad Mehldau, Brandford Marsalis, Kenny Werner, Tord Gustavsen, Chris Potter, David Murrey, Chick Corea, Astor Piazzolla, J.S.Bach