Lida Tutuola

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My first-ever stage performance was at the Kyiv Philharmonic, when I was three years old. Performing remained a constant part of my childhood, developing alongside my musical education. Rehearsals, concerts, festivals, recording sessions and other performances filled much of my childhood — often almost every weekend.

At four, I entered the Mykola Lysenko specialised music boarding school in Kyiv, a highly selective school for musically gifted children. My musical education was broad from the beginning: piano, solfeggio, music literature, rhythmics, dance, choir, ensemble singing and instrumental ensemble work all developed alongside regular stage experience. During my years at the school, I also took part in a production of Mykola Lysenko’s children’s opera Koza-Dereza.

I grew up within a large and active children’s music, radio and television scene. Alongside concerts and recordings, there were festivals, creative gatherings and exchange projects with children’s choirs and ensembles from other cities and countries. Visiting groups came to Kyiv, including choirs from Kentucky and Leningrad, and meeting and working alongside other young musicians was a natural part of that environment.

From around the age of nine, I continued my musical education at a children’s music school while performing remained a constant part of my life. By about thirteen, I was also singing and playing in a teenage band. It was essentially our own young garage band, but we were already performing at school graduation events, with me mainly as the vocalist. 

By around fifteen, teaching was already another part of my professional life. Because I was still underage, I could only work part-time, so I worked in two places: teaching music to pupils in grades 7–8 at a school, and working as a music teacher with children in a kindergarten.

At the same age, I also had my first private student — an adult who wanted to sing and play piano. At fifteen, having a grown man come to me for music lessons felt slightly surreal, but it became the beginning of a private teaching practice that would continue alongside my performing work for many years.

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At the Kyiv State College of Variety and Circus Arts, I studied in the vocal class of Isabella Lysenko.

I graduated from the Kyiv State College of Variety and Circus Arts in 2001, becoming the first student in the college’s history to be permitted to complete the four-year programme in three years and receive my diploma.

During my student years, formal study and professional work continued side by side. I was already performing and recording professionally while completing my education. I never really experienced these as two separate worlds — classes, rehearsals, studio sessions and stage work were simply different parts of the same everyday life.

College productions could bring together around 200 performers on the same stage — singers, dancers, acrobats, jugglers, mimes, equilibrists, contortionists and hula-hoop artists. The opening and finale were often the most demanding parts: dozens of entrances, movements and stage elements had to come together at exactly the right moment. For us as vocalists, with only microphones in our hands, it was an early lesson in timing, spatial awareness and trust between performers.

During my student years, I recorded my own album, including the track “Poleteli”. The song was recorded while I was still at college, and the music video was filmed shortly after my graduation. It went into rotation on M1 and later continued to appear on Ukrainian television for many years — long after I had stopped actively promoting the project.