Biography

w r i t e r

Olga Krashenko was born in 1983 in Kaliningrad. She started to write her first poems being 12 years old and first prose at the age of 14. Her first publication was in the magazine "West of Russia". She is a five-time winner of the literature competition "Young Voices" (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004).

Olga Krashenko was director of the youth center "Inspiration" in the House of Culture "Mashinostroitel" from 2000 to 2003. She gathered creative people of Kaliningrad area from different fields (literature, theatre, philosophy, history, etc.) for joint projects.

Her palindromes were published by the almanac "Tit" (Perm). Also her works were published by the almanac "Agora" (Kaliningrad) and elsewhere. In 2010 her novel "Eat My Heart" came out in the magazine "REFLECT… КУАДУСЕШЩТ # 35" in the United States. She was also published in magazines and online journals such as "Apocryph" and almanac “Crossroads of Civilizations”.

Olga Krashenko has written more than 30 prose works (novels, stories) together with 3 large collections of her poems. Some of her literary works have been translated into English. Since 2004, she publishes online a blog {"Fragments of Life"} where she writes about her musical and literary activity. She is a member of the writers union "Rodnik" (Kaliningrad).

Featured works

2024

Book "Research on Musical Holes"

In my book "Research on Musical Holes", I developed a method of musical thinking that goes beyond traditional musicology. The book researches the contradictions, paradoxes and missing elements in music as a concept and all extra-musical elements connected with it. Many such things are usually not addressed in studies that try to present music theory in the form of clear, precise distinctions. In this book, familiar musical concepts are subjected to deconstruction, a search for contradictions and ambiguities, and discussions about what is missing (and, in general, about the concept of freedom due to absence). Musical holes will be identified and made analyzable. If one is sure that the definition of music and its components, as well as, the process of its creation and the localization of its sounds in space and time, are all somethings that are very obvious and simple, then this book will give rise to doubts, rethinking, and a radical new look at music as concept and sonic phenomenon. This could be the equivalent of certain logical paradoxes in philosophy and the unconsciousness as blind spots and half-truths in Lacanian psychoanalysis.

2023

Opera "Tintagiles"

The video-opera «Tintagiles» is based on the play of Maurice Maeterlinck «The Death of Tintagiles». The video-opera genre combines sound and motion by creating a fusion made with synesthesia in the case of this composition. The opera includes 7 characters with electronics (multi-channel tape) and a special video. The length of the opera is 2 h. 30 min. The form consists of 5 acts as well as a prelude, a postlude and 4 interludes.

2021

CD of the opera "Macondo"

Sound poetry libretto written by Olga Krashenko, inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Opera for 4 soloist-instrumentalists, choir, ensembles, orchestras and concrete sounds. Soloists: members of the ensemble C.L.S.I. (Circle for the Liberation of Sound and Image). Vocal, instrumental and concrete sounds composed and recorded by Olga Krashenko. The opera is dedicated to the memory of the writer G.G. Marquez.

Article

Synesthesia of Sound in Colour and Motion

on the example of video-opera “Tintagiles”

If at the neurophysiological level we are dealing with the borderline state of different zones and their intersection, which is typical for synesthesia, then in the field of art, the genre of opera already initially allows you to combine different ways of perception into one experience, thus overcoming the resulting separation and fragmentation of specializations in art and recreating the synthesis with the help of modern means and technologies.

Today opera continues to be relevant, and not only within the walls of opera houses, but also beyond them. The opera “Tintagiles” based on Maurice Maeterlinck's play “The Death of Tintagiles” is an example of a video opera (2017-2022) in which textual, musical and light-color symbols are synesthetically combined with the help of modern sound and video recording technologies and where their interweaving covers the whole range of possible associations, from the literal to the distant and abstract.