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"Belarusians in the focus"
Anna Sharkovskaya, an accompanist of the Lepel District Community Center, a prizewinner of international competitions, TikTok star and a virtuoso musician, actively promotes Belarusian hammered dulcimers. She performs world classics and rock along with folk songs. In the latest episode of the Belarusians in Focus project we talked to Anna about how much time is needed to learn to play this stringed percussion instrument masterfully, what future it has and what delights the audience.
For the first time Anna played dulcimers at the age of six, before that she tried herself at dancing and acting.
The idea of performing rock music on a folk instrument was suggested to the young woman by her colleagues at the regional cultural center. Bringing the idea to life seemed unrealistic to Anna, but her desire to experiment and discover something new was stronger than her doubts.
“It’s understandable that in college we only played classical music or folk songs. Playing something from modern hits seemed fantastical, but we still tried to play Queen. The composition fit the instrument beautifully. Then came Nirvana, Imagine Dragons, Europe - and so, one after another, we ended up with an eighth solo concert at the local cultural center. Who would have thought that the Belarusian dulcimer was made for rock!” the musician said with a smile.
Fans even come from Russia for solo concerts
Traditionally, every year at the end of January, on the eve of Anna’s birthday, a solo concert is held at the Lepel regional cultural center, drawing not only local residents but also guests from Minsk, Polotsk, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. Nowadays, tickets for the solo concert are ordered in advance, people eagerly await it, and the hall is always full. But at the first one, barely half the hall was filled.
“Back then, only my relatives, friends, and close ones came. Others thought a girl in a folk costume and a kokoshnik would take the stage and play Perapyolachka and Kupalinka for an hour, but instead Queen and Nirvana sounded on the dulcimer,” Anna Sharkovskaya said. “Locals quickly found out about my repertoire because I started promoting rock by performing at events around town. Word of mouth also helped. By the second concert, the hall was full, and every year there are more and more spectators.”
The dulcimer player spends about a year preparing for each hour-and-a-half-long concert. She plans out the acts, selects and learns the pieces, and arranges the lighting, sound, and special effects. In addition, she comes up with interactive elements and gifts for the audience, such as calendars or collages with her autograph. Anna’s colleagues are also involved – it’s a true team effort. According to her, it is through this collaborative work that such impressive performances are created.
“The concert program is renewed every year. I start with a song that I like, but apparently I’ll have to end with Charochka na Pososhok. For three years in a row, we closed the solo concert with it, then we thought the audience had grown tired of it and decided to choose another one. But after the concert, people asked us: ‘Where was Charochka na Pososhok? We were waiting for it’. Now I understand that I need to end the program with that song. The audience has grown to love it. By the way, its author is a singer and composer originally from Lepel,” Anna Sharkovskaya said, sharing her plans for the ninth solo concert: “I want to bring in actors and choreography to create a rock opera performed solely on the dulcimer.”
Anna Sharkovskaya’s repertoire includes over 100 compositions. She used to search for sheet music online, but now she can pick out a melody by ear. Anna admitted that she has come to truly appreciate the national instrument and is delighted when her work resonates with the audience.
“Many people come to the concerts to soak up the energy. When you give yourself to people and receive the same in return, it’s an incomparable pleasure. I’ve performed for audiences of thousands at Minsk Arena and Chizhovka Arena. But what I love most is performing for the Lepel audience. Here, everything is familiar - the city and the people,” she confessed.
Today, the musician cannot imagine her life without the folk instrument.
- “At concerts I’m completely on fire, and the instrument burns with me. The dulcimer is my life; I live through it,” she said. “Now this national instrument is opening up in a new format. It is used not only for Belarusian and folk melodies, but also for rock, foreign hits, and popular songs from the 1990s. The dulcimer is gaining the recognition it deserves, and more and more musicians are moving away from classical repertoire in favor of popular compositions.”
A musician’s ‘makeup bag’
Anna speaks about her favorite stringed instrument with enthusiasm. The dulcimer has a trapezoid shape and is made of maple, a wood species resistant to temperature changes. The instrument weighs between 12 and 13 kilograms, depending on the length of the legs and materials, and has 78 strings.
“People always ask me: how do you carry it being so small and delicate? My wonderful colleagues help me: they bring the instrument onto the stage. The guys joke that one day they’ll attach wheels to it,” she said.
No concert of the musician is complete without what she calls her “makeup bag”: a kit with everything needed for the dulcimer. Inside you’ll find a screwdriver for hooking a new string, wire cutters and pliers for trimming, a special tuning key, spare strings, and mallets. Anna admited that once, thanks to the contents of this “makeup bag”, she managed to open a dressing-room door that had slammed shut five minutes before she was due on stage.
“One pair of mallets I’ve had since school. I ordered a second pair just in case, because sometimes I get carried away and they simply fly out of my hands, but I still have to keep playing. So the spare pair always lies on the dulcimer,” Anna Sharkovskaya explained.
Playing this percussive string instrument requires strong hands, so she practices six hours a day. She is convinced that musicians, like athletes, must constantly train. Only then can you achieve results. She admited, however, that over time her back begins to hurt because she is always tense while playing.
- “Despite the physical strain, the music that comes from the dulcimer is worth everything. I cannot live without it,” Anna said. “The most important thing in life is to truly love what you do. You just have to move toward your goal, and it will move toward you. That’s the whole secret.”
Fun fact
Anna Sharkovskaya is also a music blogger: she posts concert videos and hosts live streams on social media. She now has more than 35,000 followers. But her main fan, support, and inspiration has always been her mother.
- “She is my first audience, my listener, costume designer, reporter, photographer, and producer: always by my side. My mom is my favorite person in the world, and I pray she stays with me for a very long time,” Anna said.
Besides music, she enjoys embroidery. The Lepel Crafts House recently hosted an exhibition of her works. For Anna, this hobby is a way to reset and recharge.
Vadim KondratyukPhoto of the author and from Anna’s archive7 Dnei newspaper
"I haven't let the hammers out for days"
“The head of the music school came to us and suggested my parents bring me to an audition. There were no musicians in our family, only my grandmother had some accordion training. The only thing dad asked for was not to play the piano, because there was no place to put it at home. The music school auditioned me and accepted me to the dulcimer class. From that day, my musical journey began,” Anna Sharkovskaya recalled.
“The company was going on tour to Spain for a month, and they urgently needed a dulcimer player. I was given a large stack of notes and 30 days to learn the program. I haven't let the hammers out for days, but I mastered the program and went to Spain,” the girl said.
After school, she enrolled in the Sollertinsky Vitebsk State Music College and in her third year she joined the Lyavonikha folk dance company.
Anna has worked at Lyavonikha for two years and is sincerely grateful to the team that gave her opportunity to see the world. But she was drawn to her hometown, and as a young specialist she returned to Lepel, where she has been working at the community center for 10 years.
Anna admitted that, like all creative people, she had moments when she didn't even want to see the instrument:
“As a child, I told my mother that I wanted to leave music school, just like the girl from our class. But I was not allowed to do that. Even in college, I tore up notes, threw hammers, and the teacher ‘threatened’ to give up on me. When I grew up, I truly fell in love with dulcimers. Especially when I started playing what I like.”
Anna’s collection includes many awards. She is a three-time winner of the national festival "Student Agrarian Spring in Vitebsk", a two-time winner of the trade union competition "New Names", holds the first-degree diploma of the international festival "Wave of Ideas" in Bulgaria. She has also received a letter of commendation from the Belarusian culture minister. The greatest recognition came when she won the first prize at the international festival "Rainbow over Vitebsk", held as part of the Slavianski Bazaar arts festival. There Anna performed Luna tu by Alessandro Safin blindfolded.
-“In college, I was offered a chance to play blindfolded. I had been preparing for about a year. When I felt confident, I applied for a competition featuring musicians from 10 countries. I was blindfolded, played Luna tu, and all the people loved it. In the evening, they called me and said that I had won. I was suggested to join the gala concert with this performance the following day. The audience was delighted," Anna Sharkovskaya said. "That’s how I woke up famous. I still perform this routine, and the audience is always amazed at how it’s possible. In response, I say that after 20 years of playing the dulcimer, anything is possible."
The idea of performing rock music on a folk instrument was suggested to the young woman by her colleagues at the regional cultural center. Bringing the idea to life seemed unrealistic to Anna, but her desire to experiment and discover something new was stronger than her doubts.
“It’s understandable that in college we only played classical music or folk songs. Playing something from modern hits seemed fantastical, but we still tried to play Queen. The composition fit the instrument beautifully. Then came Nirvana, Imagine Dragons, Europe - and so, one after another, we ended up with an eighth solo concert at the local cultural center. Who would have thought that the Belarusian dulcimer was made for rock!” the musician said with a smile.
Fans even come from Russia for solo concerts
Traditionally, every year at the end of January, on the eve of Anna’s birthday, a solo concert is held at the Lepel regional cultural center, drawing not only local residents but also guests from Minsk, Polotsk, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. Nowadays, tickets for the solo concert are ordered in advance, people eagerly await it, and the hall is always full. But at the first one, barely half the hall was filled.
“Back then, only my relatives, friends, and close ones came. Others thought a girl in a folk costume and a kokoshnik would take the stage and play Perapyolachka and Kupalinka for an hour, but instead Queen and Nirvana sounded on the dulcimer,” Anna Sharkovskaya said. “Locals quickly found out about my repertoire because I started promoting rock by performing at events around town. Word of mouth also helped. By the second concert, the hall was full, and every year there are more and more spectators.”
The dulcimer player spends about a year preparing for each hour-and-a-half-long concert. She plans out the acts, selects and learns the pieces, and arranges the lighting, sound, and special effects. In addition, she comes up with interactive elements and gifts for the audience, such as calendars or collages with her autograph. Anna’s colleagues are also involved – it’s a true team effort. According to her, it is through this collaborative work that such impressive performances are created.
“The concert program is renewed every year. I start with a song that I like, but apparently I’ll have to end with Charochka na Pososhok. For three years in a row, we closed the solo concert with it, then we thought the audience had grown tired of it and decided to choose another one. But after the concert, people asked us: ‘Where was Charochka na Pososhok? We were waiting for it’. Now I understand that I need to end the program with that song. The audience has grown to love it. By the way, its author is a singer and composer originally from Lepel,” Anna Sharkovskaya said, sharing her plans for the ninth solo concert: “I want to bring in actors and choreography to create a rock opera performed solely on the dulcimer.”
Anna Sharkovskaya’s repertoire includes over 100 compositions. She used to search for sheet music online, but now she can pick out a melody by ear. Anna admitted that she has come to truly appreciate the national instrument and is delighted when her work resonates with the audience.
“Many people come to the concerts to soak up the energy. When you give yourself to people and receive the same in return, it’s an incomparable pleasure. I’ve performed for audiences of thousands at Minsk Arena and Chizhovka Arena. But what I love most is performing for the Lepel audience. Here, everything is familiar - the city and the people,” she confessed.
Today, the musician cannot imagine her life without the folk instrument.
- “At concerts I’m completely on fire, and the instrument burns with me. The dulcimer is my life; I live through it,” she said. “Now this national instrument is opening up in a new format. It is used not only for Belarusian and folk melodies, but also for rock, foreign hits, and popular songs from the 1990s. The dulcimer is gaining the recognition it deserves, and more and more musicians are moving away from classical repertoire in favor of popular compositions.”
A musician’s ‘makeup bag’
Anna speaks about her favorite stringed instrument with enthusiasm. The dulcimer has a trapezoid shape and is made of maple, a wood species resistant to temperature changes. The instrument weighs between 12 and 13 kilograms, depending on the length of the legs and materials, and has 78 strings.
“People always ask me: how do you carry it being so small and delicate? My wonderful colleagues help me: they bring the instrument onto the stage. The guys joke that one day they’ll attach wheels to it,” she said.
No concert of the musician is complete without what she calls her “makeup bag”: a kit with everything needed for the dulcimer. Inside you’ll find a screwdriver for hooking a new string, wire cutters and pliers for trimming, a special tuning key, spare strings, and mallets. Anna admited that once, thanks to the contents of this “makeup bag”, she managed to open a dressing-room door that had slammed shut five minutes before she was due on stage.
“One pair of mallets I’ve had since school. I ordered a second pair just in case, because sometimes I get carried away and they simply fly out of my hands, but I still have to keep playing. So the spare pair always lies on the dulcimer,” Anna Sharkovskaya explained.
Playing this percussive string instrument requires strong hands, so she practices six hours a day. She is convinced that musicians, like athletes, must constantly train. Only then can you achieve results. She admited, however, that over time her back begins to hurt because she is always tense while playing.
- “Despite the physical strain, the music that comes from the dulcimer is worth everything. I cannot live without it,” Anna said. “The most important thing in life is to truly love what you do. You just have to move toward your goal, and it will move toward you. That’s the whole secret.”Fun fact
Anna Sharkovskaya is also a music blogger: she posts concert videos and hosts live streams on social media. She now has more than 35,000 followers. But her main fan, support, and inspiration has always been her mother.
- “She is my first audience, my listener, costume designer, reporter, photographer, and producer: always by my side. My mom is my favorite person in the world, and I pray she stays with me for a very long time,” Anna said.
Besides music, she enjoys embroidery. The Lepel Crafts House recently hosted an exhibition of her works. For Anna, this hobby is a way to reset and recharge.
Vadim KondratyukPhoto of the author and from Anna’s archive7 Dnei newspaper
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