Sonia Lozina

“I suppose I start with dramaturgy, most of the time. Coming from a theatrical background, it’s very important I know where I want a piece to start, how I want it to develop, which points I want to hit, how I want it to end; I need to understand what is happening in the piece.”

Sonia Lozina

Sonia Lozina (b. 2004, Kyiv) is a Ukrainian composer based in Vienna. Sonia’s works deal with themes such as folklore, cultural heritage, myths, memory and rebellion; originally from a pop performance background, she currently studies composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts (mdw) in Vienna, and studied her Bachelor’s degree in music theory in Kyiv. Her music has been performed at various venues in Vienna including Alte Schmiede, Echoraum, the Ehrbar Hall, Kirche St. Ursula, and Austrian National Library; in 2024, she was awarded a grant from the European Artists Solidarity Programme (ASoP), funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry, creating her music-theatrical performance ‘Blüte des Farnes’. In 2025, she received both the First Prize and the Audience Award for her choral piece ‘The story with Blud’ at the Euregio Klassika competition. Sonia has worked in collaboration with performers and ensembles including the Lyatoshynsky Trio and àktapha, and is currently writing a piece for the Argo Kollektiv; in 2026, her work was presented in Hanoi as part of a cultural project supported by the Austrian Embassy.

On 29 May, Sonia’s latest work ‘pink ponies and war news’ — for ensemble, electronics, and visuals — will be performed by Argo Kollektiv at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Ahead of her premiere with Argo Kollektiv, we caught up with Sonia over Zoom to discuss her recent projects, approaches to dramaturgy and storytelling, tonality, Ukrainian folklore, and bridges between generations…

Header photo by Arthur Podzolkin

Zyggy/PRXLUDES: Thanks so much for joining me today, Sonia! I wanted to start by asking you about your musical background. You have a practice as a pop singer-songwriter as well as a composer — how did you first get introduced to music and to composition?

Sonia Lozina: This is actually a very cute story. I was first introduced to composing by my piano teacher. Before I was a composer, I was a very serious pianist — my teacher wanted me to build a career as a classical pianist, which didn’t happen… -laughs- I once brought a piece I composed to a lesson, and she said “do you know that we have composition lessons in our music school?”

So I came to this compositional class, and it was going very well. By the age of eight (or ten, maybe), I composed a musical; it was such a nice experience. We made a musical in my music school! Of course, it was very tonal — I was a kid — but I was very passionate, and very sincere. I composed all music and song numbers, storyline, even dances sometimes, I also had a main role (of course). My mum really helped me with the script… I was casting my friends in school for the roles; there were costumes, there were decorations. I think this has really influenced me in working with theatrical themes, because this is where I bloomed.

Was there a particular moment you had where you chose to take composition seriously, or professionally?

That’s a good question — I’m not even sure how to answer. I’ve had parallel worlds in my life, all the time: I had classical music, being a pianist, and it was only when I was 15 [when] I understood that I was not going to college to study piano. I also always had this pop singing world. It took so much time: competitions, festivals, singing lessons… I was acting in theatre for four of five years, as well. So that was a huge amount of time.

Somewhere around the time I was 17, I had to choose [what] I’m going to study in university. I studied my Bachelor’s in Kyiv in music theory — I also had composition classes there, and only when I started composition classes [did I] realise “this is what I actually want”. It seems [like] I can bring so much to that. Looking back, I think I felt that composition has always been a huge and an essential part of me, especially with my songwriting “thing”.

Of course, the biggest jump was when the full-scale war started. It was like, nobody had a future then; at least that was how I felt about my life. I was first in Poland for a few months — I’m very grateful to Polish people for hosting us — and then I came to Vienna, because mdw [Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien] also very kindly offered a guest programme for Ukrainian students who were fleeing. This is the place where I found out modern composition actually exists. I knew Stockhausen had this helicopter string quartet, but I thought it was a weird thing that was happening… But it’s such a huge and rich world. Ever since coming here, I’ve been trying to get to know it, trying to find my place here.

When you first started getting exposed to contemporary music Vienna, what were you exploring? Was there anything that stood out to you?

I think my whole first year, I dedicated myself to neofolklorism — which is why [I have] so many pieces inspired by Ukrainian folklore. It was a way I could still combine my world which I knew — with melody, pitches — and new techniques. I was very interested in new structures, new soundscapes; but I knew I wasn’t capable of only doing that. So neofolklorism has a huge place in my heart. I stuck with it for two semesters, and then I thought I need to try something new — to find out what more I can do.

Can you tell me a bit more about neofolklorism — what do you mean by that term, and how has Ukrainian folklore inspired your work?

Ever since Russia started this atrocious war in Ukraine, and have been killing my people every single day, one of the biggest narratives that Russia put into this war is that Ukraine is “a part of Russia” — which is entirely bizarre. Kyiv was founded in the 5th Century — it’s so much older. But [what] I want to showcase in my music, in those early pieces, is that Ukraine is so rich: we have our own culture, our own language, and this huge scope of myths, legends, and folklore.

For me, it was so fascinating. All of those traditions, and myths, are so theatrical. Especially taking Ivana Kupala — it’s a festival that’s celebrated [in] summer — it has so many spectacular traditions like jumping through fire, making flower crowns, and searching for the fern flower; which is a legend that says whoever finds the fern flower will have luck in love for eternity. The fern flower doesn’t exist — it’s a magical thing — but Ukrainian folklore has a lot to do with magic, which is beautiful.

I’m taking elements that I’m fascinated with, and trying to put them into music. For Ivana Kupala, there were a few pieces. ‘Farnblüte’ [trans. “fern flower”] is based on a poem by Ihor Kalynets, portray[ing] a more mystical, magical side of the festival. His poem, called Vohon’ Kupala — “fire of kupala” — is a major symbol. My piece is for cello, piano, and narrator; I basically took the elements of the festival — jumping over the fire, looking for the fern flower — and tried to incorporate them, musically. The cello has some passages that are fiery; there are some very high glissandi on the piano to symbolise the jumps over the fire.

Let’s talk about your compositional process. Where do you tend to first start when writing a piece — do you tend to think conceptually or technically?

I suppose I start with dramaturgy, most of the time. Coming from a theatrical background, it’s very important I know where I want a piece to start, how I want it to develop, which points I want to hit, how I want it to end; I need to understand what is happening in the piece. I think about what elements I want to portray, and [then] how those elements sound for me — trying to think [about] which instruments I have — sometimes it’s my project, sometimes the instruments are assigned. But the start is always the form and dramaturgy, for me.

I understand that! How do those ideas of starting with dramaturgy inform your relationship to textual sources in your work? I’m thinking both about ‘Farnblute’ and your piano suite, ‘Kononiv Fields’…

Those two pieces are kind of different! ‘Farnblute’ is absolutely influenced by the poem — the structure itself is the poem, the actions, the energy. ‘Kononiv Fields’ is more of [a] cycle of piano miniatures. There’s actually three of them. I composed the first two a year and a half ago. The base of this whole cycle is a Ukrainian novel by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky. The text itself is very impressionistic; in school, when we were preparing for our exams, it was a piece that stood out [to me], because it was such an unusual thing for me — the structure was very interesting.

As a base, I took the characters he has in the novel. There’s ten of them, with names like ‘Fields in July’, ‘My Tiredness’, ‘Sun’, ‘Three White Dogs’. I wanted to capture my impression of those symbols; not exactly working with the “text”, but what energy the text gives me. I [first] did ‘Fields in July’ and ‘My Tiredness’, and last October I did ‘The Iron Hand of the City’ [ed. ‘die eiserne Hand der Stadt’], which was premiered in Alte Schmiede in Vienna that month.

You wrote that third movement of the work — ‘The Iron Hand of the City’ — quite a bit later on than the first two. Did you notice any stylistic shifts, composing this movement later than the others?

It became a really aggressive piece. It was [written] a year and a half later — it was fun to see how my style developed. I think I was more of an explorer when I wrote the third miniature; I was more open-minded about what an instrument can give you. I was using pedals — pressing only the pedals down as a sound itself. I limited myself a bit with materials; I was trying to work [more] with development of that material. I took a bit less tonal material, as well. That’s where I’m trying to explore right now; even though I still love adding tonal material to my pieces, I’m trying to see how far I can go without that material. Maybe in the future, I will do all of the characters, and it will take me like ten years. -laughs-

I’d love to explore that a bit more. What do you feel like your relationship is to tonality at the moment, as something that’s been quite a formative part of your practice?

I don’t want to limit myself and say “okay, I’m not composing any tonal music, tonal music is a no-no” — but I’m trying to develop my pieces in [a way that’s] more rounded. This is the kind of working with sound that I really like: each material has its own place, its own role. I don’t want to get rid of my tonal melodies, or tonal soundscapes. I’m just trying to look for a place to suit them in my pieces.

Much of your work also features text itself, whether sung or narrated. How do you feel the way in which you present text — or how textual sources are presented — changes your compositional approach?

I feel like when the text is spoken, it adds a more energetic layer to the piece. I did a piece for two cellos — ‘HOWL’ — as part of a semester project; I was very fascinated with beat generation poets, and how much power they have — it’s very aggressive, but also very tiring pieces of literature. They almost have a dark energy, in an inspiring, accumulated sense. -laughs- I’ve been reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac — which has been a hard read — and Allen Ginsberg’s famous Howl poem. I took it [Howl] as an inspiration for this cello piece: it’s very aggressive — “dragging themselves through the streets at dawn looking for an angry fix”. I wanted to portray this tiredness, this sadness, this madness, in the piece; it’s very percussive, it’s not really my “style”. You wouldn’t recognise it’s for two cellos!

Speaking of style, I’d love to circle back to your approach to tonality. Is this idea — bringing “tonal” elements into a less “tonal” space — something you’ve explored recently?

Actually, the piece I did for àktapha, for example! It is kind of based on the history of Greece; it has a small connection with Ukraine [as well], because Greeks had an influence on Ukrainian lands — we have a few territories that had been founded by Greeks long, long ago. Mostly, I was fascinated by the architecture: not the Acropolis, but how the cities were built, how ordinary life was built. The piece is called ‘a rusty piece, played on sand’. It basically consists of very dry, sandy sounds. I feel like it gives a very crisp, rusty impression. In the middle, there is a guitar solo that I composed based on some Greek melodies; I listened to a lot of kithara recordings on YouTube — an old relative of guitar — so this is what I tried to implement.

The scenography of the piece that I thought of was this very dry, sandy city. It was a popular tradition in Greece to visit the kithara player, mostly in ampitheatres — so [structurally] it’s a city, then the guitar player plays a solo, and then we go back into the city. So the tonality takes place in this guitar solo. This is how I found a place for this kind of material.

There’s something there for me about taking these old folk traditions, or myths, and recontextualising them in the modern era. I feel like your choral piece ‘The story with Blud’ does this very well, too…

Of course. I feel like this is a very good way of implement[ing] the folklore of any nation. Take any nation — folklore is such a rich background that you can use: established traditions, legends, songs, melodies, those practices. I feel like this is such an intimate and cute connection between us humans. We are all people — and they were also people. Trying to bring this into modern music is almost like a bridge between generations. First of all it’s a very good ground for materials, stories, and inspirations; second of all, it’s a human connection; and third of all, it’s an interesting way to bring something “new” — question-mark “new?” -laughs- — into modern music.

I guess it’s about forging a connection with something bigger than yourself. Or the realisation that previous generations of humans lived, talked, and thought the same way we do.

I like the phrase “nothing new can be made”. It’s not the negative side of it. But everything that we ever thought of, everything we ever did, has already [been] done, and thought of — but I think of it more in a beautiful way. So many generations were doing, thinking, worrying about the same things that we are. It’s a nice connection. This is how humans are all interlinked.

I was exploring Vietnamese folklore for a cultural project in Hanoi, [and] I found the same creature that has the same role as in Ukrainian folklore. ‘The Story with Blud’ is based on a Slavic Ukrainian legend of a creature that lives in the forest, and it can turn into whoever it wants to — in my case, it turns into a woman to lure [people] into the forest. And the same energy of a creature exists in Vietnamese folklore as a fox that has nine tails. There are different interpretations — sometimes the fox is kind, usually it’s not really kind — but it also lures people into the forest. It’s so interesting to see our ancestors were scared of the same thing! The forest was so unknown for them, so they created some legends that has the same dramaturgy. It’s understandable to us. Everyone has the same instincts and we operate on them.

Tell me more about this cultural project in Hanoi — I understand they’re doing [ed. at time of interview] a portrait concert of your music, featuring multiple pieces of yours?

I have three pieces for this concert. The first one is ‘The Story with Blud’, then [the] premiere we’ve just discussed — ‘Nine-Tailed’. And between them is a piano piece that I composed for a music-theatrical concert in Vienna back in 2024 — ‘Karpatischer Tanz’. It is also a kind of theatrical piece; I first do a theatrical scene with the grand piano, and only then [do] I go and play the piece. I thought this would be a nice connection between the two pieces.

‘Nine-Tailed’ is a piece for six instruments — bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, and percussion. I picked this fox creature as my background; [as] the fox has nine tails, I tried to take that as an inspiration. 9 is a very figurative number in this piece… Of course, people listening to the piece for the first time are not going to count how many fast notes the bass clarinet plays, but it’s a nice element for me. I tried to maintain the same character of the piece [as] sly, tricky; the same energy [of] how quick and sly the fox is.

At the start of our interview, we talked about your background as a pop singer. Let’s talk a bit more about these “parallel worlds” — what role does songwriting play in your practice nowadays?

I definitely have much less time for songwriting at the moment. -laughs- Those are two separate things for me. Maybe I don’t notice how I incorporate some elements of my pop world into contemporary music — I never thought about this — but it was definitely not intentional.

Songwriting has been with me longer, that is true. But it is a very serious occupation. If I would want to continue with it, I would need to spend much more time doing media, promoting my own music, promoting my songs… Media presence. I sometimes think it is such a pity, because I really love performing, I really love [the] stage — it’s been with me ever since I was four years old. It’s a shame that I don’t get to experience it that much because I chose to live in another world.

Of course, I still write songs. It takes much more time to produce the songs — with my friends, my colleagues — and put it online. From time to time, I get invited to [perform at] concerts, which is where I bloom. I like that I can give energy to people, I love when some songs give people comfort. But it take[s] a lot of time to be successful. I mean, I got very lucky, because my boyfriend is a cinematographer — so this is where I have it easy. -laughs- I love it so much, but I would need to take it seriously for it to go much further — I take it more like a hobby right now.

Even if you’re not pursuing songwriting as a career, there’s no reason your experiences as a performer won’t feed into how you approach composition.

Absolutely. The thing I would want to do with my composition is to go more towards the theatrical, performance direction — so there’s more of a performing level [for me]. To work with a theatre production would be my biggest dream, for now; this is where I strive, this is my energy. I would want to take part in my performances sometimes (I mean it’s not always possible!)

When I did this music-theatrical concert as part of my Artist Solidarity Program Europe [ASoP] scholarship, I took part in almost every piece: I was the narrator in ‘Farnblüte’; I directed a scene with five girls, and I was also acting in that; and also ‘Karpatischer Tanz’ that is also theatrical. I obviously feel like gravitating towards being a part of the performance on stage, and I want to integrate that. But I know that it’s not always possible. I also like writing music just for the music itself — like with àktapha. Of course I’m not going to be playing bass clarinet there. -laughs-

I feel like this past year, I’ve been exploring what I like, and what I want to do. But I always come [back] to the fact that I need something theatrical in my music. It’s always there, because this is who I am.

I think the most exciting composers are the ones that have multifaceted practices, and bring those all together in their work. I’m thinking of composer-performers such as Laura Bowler — as well as artists with experience outside of classical music, such as yourself.

I resonate with that. I think classical music was a bit stagnant for some time — and I hope that with our new generation of composers who come from multidisciplinary worlds, we will have able to change this approach. It’s very one-layered, sometimes. Lots of people I know, who study with me, are not just interested in contemporary music; but [are also] mixing it with other things that you like, that you know. There’s a lot of us with multifaceted practices. I think we will be representative of our generation — I hope so.

To talk about what’s coming up for you — you’re currently writing a piece for Argo Kollektiv, which is being performed in Vienna on the 29th May. Can you tell me about how you’re approaching this work?

I really want it to be a very experimental piece for me. [Until now] I never did any piece that was a commentary on war. Ever since the full-scale invasion started in 2022, I felt like I did not have much to say about it musically at that moment. But really randomly, I thought about the first impression I had of the war. On the 24th February, when it all started, I was at home in Kyiv, and my brother and his kids came to us — so that we would be closer. He has two small kids: the girl I think was five at the time, and the boy was two.

When I was a kid, I was very fascinated with horses and ponies; so I had a whole collection of ponies and horses. They took [them] and were playing on the carpet in our living room. In each room, we had the radio turned on to hear what’s happening — because nobody knew what to do. And it was so bizarre and absurd to me: these small kids playing with ponies, and one metre behind there’s a radio of the president saying war news. I wanted to portray this in a piece to make a commentary on war.

It will be my first piece with electronics; I’m very nervous of how it’s going to function. -laughs- I’m trying to be very open-minded in what instruments can offer; to not be bordered by classical traditions of the instrument. What can I do — what kinds of sounds I can make — that can be applied to the idea.

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For those in Vienna – catch the world premiere of Sonia Lozina’s ‘pink ponies and war news’ as part of Argo Kollektiv’s performance at the University of Music and Performing Arts on the 29th May – more information and tickets can be found here:

• https://www.argokollektiv.com/event-details/mdw-komposition-studierende-von-oscar-bianchi

Learn more about Sonia Lozina and her practice:

• https://www.instagram.com/sophi_lozina/
• https://www.youtube.com/@SophiLozina
• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRMgtiVU4DQupygO7_kUR_hp6b2j3Rqfq

References/Links:

• Karlheinz Stockhausen – ‘Helikopter-Streichsquartett’ (1995)
• Alexandra Keeler, ‘Ivana Kupala, Ukraine’s midsummer festival’ (2024), Kyiv Independent
• Yuliia Kravchenko, ‘Ihor Kalynets: In Memoriam’ (2025), Kyiv Post
• Ihor Kalynets, Вогонь Купала (Vohon’ Kopala) (1975)
• Kate Tsurkan, ‘Overlooked by the Western canon: Why Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi matters now’ (2026), Kyiv Independent
• Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1951)
• Allen Ginsberg, Howl (1956)