Nina Arkadyevna Shatskaya was born in
Rybinsk,
USSR to the
jazz musician, singer and conductor Arkady Shatsky. It was in his band Raduga (Радуга, Rainbow) that she has made her singing debut. A strict disciplinarian (who for many years was unwilling to support her ambition to become a professional singer), he proved in retrospect to be a perfect mentor and a major inspiration. "I was kind of a homely girl; I liked to knit and sew. Besides, I was overweight. All this irritated him immensely: he was sure this way I'd turn out fat, lazy and stupid. He criticized me mercilessly but somehow managed to help me shape up with this criticism. I was eager to prove I was worthy of his praise," she later remembered. Later she attended the Music Hall Studio School, graduating from both. In Leningrad she felt uncomfortable and lonely. She moved to the Moscow Music Hall and studied vocals at
Gnesyn Academy, in the class of Natalya Andrianova, while also making miscellaneous recordings with orchestras for Soviet TV and radio. In 1986 the family suffered a heavy blow. At the height of the
Mikhail Gorbachev-induced 'economic crimes fighting' campaign Arkady Shatsky was arrested and sentenced to five years of hard labour for alleged financial wrongdoings. Shatsky never denied the fact that he had to use all of his entrepreneurial abilities to provide the band with the best equipment and modern instruments (like synthesizers), in the times when such items had to be 'procured' at black markets rather than legally bought. Arkady Shatsky returned home six months later after being amnestied, but the once internationally famous Raduga orchestra was now finished. "I realized that from then on I had to make my own decisions. The firm parental wall that had propped me up all of a sudden was in ruins," Nina remembered. "Investors hoped that there would be some kind of a romance revival. They wanted to make a high-budget product involving the leading Russian poets and composers. But producer
Maksim Dunayevsky "I was well aware that the material we recorded was primitive and had nothing whatsoever to do with what I'd been dreaming of. I felt like I'd been given one chance and squandered it," she later admitted. Razdolina and Shatskaya soon parted ways, but years later they met again for another Akhmathova-themed project. Shatskaya's debut album
The Game of Love (2000, part of
The Golden Mine of Romance series) later provided the title for an expansive concert project with the Russian Orchestra, directed by Boris Voron. It was followed by
The Lady of Romance (2002) which brought Shatskaya to the
Tchaikovsky Concert Hall for the first time. Arkady Shatsky, who attended the rehearsal, remarked: "At last my dream has come true. Now you are the woman I've always dreamt you'd become." Just several days after arriving to Rybinsk so as to promote Nina's concerts there, he died, aged 66. In 2005 Shatskaya's third album
Emerald (Изумруд), recorded in concert on March 13, 2005, at the
Helikon Opera, came out as part of the
Autumn Triptych concert series. The album's material, arranged starkly for piano and voice, was premiered at the
Moscow International House of Music, accompanied by Natalya Bayurova. It was followed by
Song of Happiness (2005), part two of the same project, recorded with the Anatoly Silin Orchestra, and later that year,
Mainstream Jazz, a collection of musicals, jazz and pop standards (including a cover of
George Harrison's "
Something") recorded at the Moscow International House of Music. In October 2007 Shatskaya performed at her father's fifth year memorial concert held in Rybinsk. In early 2009 Shatskaya released her sixth album
Zephir, describing it as "romanso-jazz", or "romances in jazz arrangements but in keeping with this genre's rules, without any improvisations." In October 2010 the poetry-and-music theatre production
Remembering the Sun (Память о солнце, originally titled
Sorceress) was premiered at the Moscow House of Music. Directed by Yulia Zhenova and based on Anna Akmatova's poetry (with music written by Zlata Razdolina) it featured Nina Shatskaya and actress
Olga Kabo, "two of nature's elements, two unique women... recreating images of the long lost past, when love was sacrificial and for a woman a dream of happiness was something impossible and doomed," according to the press release. On May 24, 2011, the extended version of Shatskaya's
From Romance to Jazz concert program was presented at the International Moscow House of Music, coinciding with the re-issue of
Zephir by Melodia and featuring Olga Kabo, composer Aleksander Pokidchenko and pianist Yuri Rozum as guest performers.
Career in films Nina Shatskaya appeared in two films, Vadim Derbenyov's ''On the Corner by Patryarshy's'' (2001, starring
Nikolai Karachentsov) and in
Gleb Panfilov's
In the First Circle (2006) based on
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel
The First Circle. == Style and influences ==