Vira Burmenko is a Toronto based award-winning performing artist: a composer, a violinist, a passionate instructor, and a podcast host for Musician Today. Vira holds a Master of Arts (MA) in Music Composition and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Music performance from York University.
Vira began writing music at the age of seven, with her first violin concerto emerging by the age of ten. Through all her experiences, the composer felt compelled to tell her story in music and share it with others. Vira’s MA Thesis Descension and Ascension: A Solo Violin Suite (2010), was based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead and favoured eastern practices. Her 2015 Akademia award-winning singles Three-Mix and The NeverEnding Tango received acclimation as Best Instrumental Classical/Electronica and Best Latin and were spun on over 70 FM Radio stations. In 2016 she produced a series of silent short comedy films – “La vie d’un clown” screened in fifteen festivals, has received four international awards, and three nominations. She also composed a theme for an award-winning web series Marked.
Over a decade Vira has performed with an Eastern-European Gypsy Flame Show Band and a Persian Band Baarbad Music. This experience has enriched her love for world music and inspired her next album in the making. Vira is driven by the healing power of music and nature and combines the two forces in her new music. The artist believes that technology and nature can co-exist peacefully and enhance each other. Therefore, her next album will feature an electric violin from Wood Violins, a seven-string Viper with the range as low as B flat in the bass; combined with Spirit Drum, jaw’s harp, kalimba, and a variety of percussions and flutes created from organic and recycled materials. The music ranges from meditative and transcendental to battle-fuelled rage of industrial metal. This album will be a much-needed catharsis in the artists’ life of the past couple of years. Emerging from the pandemic and affected by the war in the artists’ homeland, her new work is a re-evaluation, re-adjustment and re-creation and rebuilding of her identity as both an artist and a human being; emerging stronger and wiser, and often darker.
“Only once we have touched the darkness, can we know our true light.” – Vira Burmenko
In 2019, Vira released her first album Iron Fiddle Saga, and currently is working on a new album Obsidian. This album will be a strong statement for human rights movement with goals to unify people through the love of music making. She is also working on a series of Music for Caves, to be performed in the dark, featuring a spirit drum, other percussion, overtone singing, throaty singing styles and violin extended techniques.
Currently Vira is engaged in fundraising and helping refugees from her homeland in Ukraine. This March, in collaboration with Opera In Reach, Vira participated in the virtual charity Art for Peace concert which raised over 12,000 CAD for assistance to those affected by the war, and was sent via organizations working closely on site: Dobrodiy, Meest and Red Cross. All income from Vira’s music sales and patreon earnings of 2022 & 2023 will be donated to charities and individuals in need amidst the crises.
Vira’s book My Key to Immortality can be found on various platforms as well as print-on-demand via https://www.balboapress.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/435636-My-Key-to-Immortality
Please find Vira’s music and links to social media and patreon on her website: www.viraburmenko.com
Help Vira raise funds for her homeland affected by the war, join her patreon: https://www.patreon.com/viraburmenko
