who
I am a pianist and a singer bred by the traditions of the Russian school. My roots are planted in these memories-playing piano during overflowing dinners, and singing Soviet bard songs around family campfires. My love of song is audible in my patterns of speech. You’ll hear my voice carry in its distinct presence.
I speak through art based in vulnerability and emotional transparency. I find this vulnerability in free improvisation, writing songs, and in creating unapologetic experiences that say, “I feel with you.”
My focus as an artist is to use vulnerability and personal emotional inventory for social change. By openly exploring trauma, depression, loss, and grief in a vulnerable way, I create space for others to be comfortable with self-reflection and deep empathy.
Building community and connectivity in this way allows for more personal emotional inventory that leads to a greater understanding of happiness and suffering. Empathy and vulnerability are where we solve social issues, and create a sense of understanding across boundaries.
Photo: Alex Brown
bio
Sonya Belaya is a first generation Russian-American pianist, singer, composer, and improviser based in New York. Committed to multiplicity, she is a diverse music-maker invested in the development intimate, meaningful collaborations. Her work is centered around music as social work, exploring trauma-informed healing practices as it relates to the immigrant experience and intersectional feminist ancestry. Conscious of her role as part of a broader community, Belaya prioritizes power-sharing and storytelling as a symbol of healing through vulnerability.
Sonya’s awards include 2024 Civitella Ranieri Fellow, the 2022 ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award, 2021 American Composers Forum Create Award, the 2020-2021 Resident Artist & 2021-2022 Commissioned Artist at Roulette Intermedium, made possible by the Jerome Foundation. Her work has been additionally supported by Foundation for the Contemporary Arts. Sonya’s lead project is “Dacha”, an octet flowing freely through influences of creative music, jazz, folk, and contemporary music. The ensemble seeks to preserve and re-contextualize the ancestral memories of Russian folk traditions. Consisting of musicians from diverse music backgrounds, the project uses storytelling and improvisation as a governing principle to transcend these differences for deeper musical dialogue. Dacha was born out of a necessity to find a sense of home and belonging, when Belaya’s mother went missing in 2014. This resulted in the first project, “Songs My Mother Taught Me”, a five song cycle released in May 2019. Belaya released a second album with the ensemble, “Dacha: Live at Roulette”, in September 2020. Belaya has collaborated with Amir ElSaffar, John Roberts, Lee Tesche of Algiers, poet Ama Birch, WildUp, New Music Detroit, Tanner Porter, and Detroit Composers Project.
Sonya is an active educator focused on offering music as a means of cultivating self-awareness. She has worked as a dance collaborator at the University of Michigan, Mark Morris Dance Center, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the Martha Graham School. She is currently on faculty at Face the Music at the Kaufman Music Center, Special Music School, and the Dalton School. Sonya Belaya is a Yamaha Artist.