Dean Wolfe: As soon as I’ve heard ‘Scenes from the Dark Ages’, I really had this strong desire to connect with you and talk with you about it because this record is really unique. Tell us about your new album.
Yelena Eckemoff: ‘Scenes from the Dark Ages’ was the project that I actually conceived and even recorded in my MIDI studio a long time ago. After immigration, we have settled in a new country. It was very tough. We had no sponsorship, no money. But my husband, he said, ‘You have to continue your music.’ And since I could not leave the house, raising children at home, he got me a MIDI studio, and I was working for several years with my MIDI. And one of the projects I did in MIDI was about medieval times. I have been fascinated by medieval times since childhood. But my view of medieval times was always fairy tale-like. It was not real, historically based, but I read many different fairy tales. So, my ideas were not necessarily tied to a specific century, but I had the castle idea and the knights’ idea. And of course, the timeline was mixed because the Dark Ages is a huge stretch of time. Like masquerade, for example, wasn’t widespread until later in the Middle Ages. But, you know, for me it was all altogether. [laughs] That’s why I called it ‘Scenes’, because I usually write a story that connects all the tracks. Like I did for ‘Lonely Man and His Fish’. I wrote a story about a lonely man who had no family but a pet fish, and what happened to him. Or, the “Adventures of the Wildflower’, where I wrote a story about the seed that grew and did not know what kind of plant it was. Or I had ‘Nocturnal Animals’, which lacked a unifying story, but each animal was presented as a human with the characteristics of a certain animal.
Dean Wolfe: Yeah, you’re driven. Your music seems to be driven. You want to attach your music to some kind of purpose, then, in other words, that can be conceptualized.
Yelena Eckemoff: You know, when I was very little, I started to play by ear. My mom was a musician, a wonderful pianist and teacher, and I started.
to play very early and make up the songs. That was, you see, in me from the very beginning. For me, music is always connected to something in life, in nature, or in my feelings. I did not get into trouble with drugs or anything else because I had my music and my drawing. CD covers are my own paintings.
Dean Wolfe: Oh, really?
Yelena Eckemoff: Yeah.
Dean Wolfe: That’s fantastic. Wow, you’re a great artist.
Yelena Eckemoff: It’s like, on ‘I am a Stranger in this World’ cover, there is this woman who is getting out of the crowded world towards something in heaven. I don’t consider myself a painter, but I want to make sure that my own concepts are represented also in my paintings because that’s how I feel it.
Dean Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Yelena Eckemoff: That’s why I don’t want to use any pictures other than mine, because they’re never exactly what I want. It started when I had recorded an album, ‘Lions’. And the concept was that I am becoming a lioness and I live among lions. And when I was working on that story, music, and everything, we went to Europe to record another record. Everywhere I looked for lions. All those doors with lions, all those statues of lions, I was making a lot of pictures. And then, you know, I couldn’t find any pictures that would go with my story. I even went to the zoo and spent the entire day photographing lions, but it still did not help. So, I decided to paint the cover myself. Since 2013, I have been painting my own cover art. [laughs]
Dean Wolfe: Cool. You’ve got a new album coming out. Do you have your own record company or label?
Yelena Eckemoff: Yeah. You know, I had some interest from labels, but I felt like what I was doing couldn’t really be done under a label. I need the power to decide exactly what I’m doing and how I’m going about it. We have had L&H Production company started even before that, but it wasn’t until 2010 when it really started to be a label, when I started to release records recorded not in a MIDI studio, but with
great musicians. By the way, this year marks my 15-year career anniversary. [laughs]
Dean Wolfe: Right.
Yelena Eckemoff: Due to immigration and the demands of raising children, it took me many years to begin my musical journey. It was very hard.
Dean Wolfe: There was a drummer I noticed who had worked with you. He’s Manu Katché. That really piqued my interest. But there, of course, are a lot of really great musicians you work with. It’s interesting to me that you’re highly collaborative and always eager to draw on others’ talents. Tell me a little about that.
Yelena Eckemoff: I was raised as a classical musician, but in my teens I got interested in other styles and listened to many albums. In the USSR, we couldn’t buy music, so everything was bootlegged. Some records had no tags—I didn’t even know who they belonged to. I listened to the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, ABBA, and Mahavishnu Orchestra—all kinds of music. That was really important for my development. I also played in prog rock and jazz rock bands, but always composed. My main goal was to compose, and I wanted the band to play my music, but it was too difficult for them. They were good, but not professionals—I was. So my music combined those influences with my classical education.
Dean Wolfe: Right.
Yelena Eckemoff: I didn’t understand then why I was eager to play my music in a band. As a concert pianist, just playing piano wasn’t enough—I heard other instruments in my head and wanted a band. But it wasn’t possible in the USSR or here in North Carolina. I tried a local band, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. When great musicians recorded my music, it worked well, but they can’t all join a band. They like my music and record it, but as they travel globally, they can’t be permanent members. Still, I appreciate this, as every record is different because of it.
Dean Wolfe: That reminds me of the band that got me into progressive rock, and I was only in grade three in school at the time, it was Alan Parsons Project. You’re probably familiar with the Alan Parsons Project. Are you?
Yelena Eckemoff: I’m not, probably not. [laughs]
Dean Wolfe: Oh, okay. Well, it’s sort of similar. On every album, he’s got different musicians, different singers. He has a few that come back on all the albums, and it reminds me a bit of that. By the way, your music, I haven’t checked all of your catalog, but it sounds like you’re mostly instrumental. Is that right?
Yelena Eckemoff: Yes. By the way, I looked up your channel and saw that you, as a musician, cover a wide range of styles and genres.
Dean Wolfe: Yeah, I do. That’s true. I haven’t listened to all of your albums yet. I’m still catching up on a lot of them. The new ones are really what amazed me. Well, first of all, your music is all instrumental. Is that correct? Don’t you sing songs?
Yelena Eckemoff: I made a record, ‘Better Than Gold and Silver,’ setting biblical Psalms to music. One of the two disks is vocal, as the songs use the words from the King James Bible. However, it’s difficult to find singers because I am very particular about how it should be sung.
Dean Wolfe: Right.
Yelena Eckemoff: ‘Better Than Gold and Silver’ has one vocal disc and another disc with just instrumental versions of the same songs. When we came to America, I composed twenty-one psalms for the singer, inspired by her voice. We performed mostly at churches. This was when my composing style was still developing, and I didn’t really know what I was doing yet. I’m mostly an instrumental composer because I can’t sing. If I could sing, it would be a different story. God gave me many things, but not a singing voice. [laughs] I was a choir director in America for twenty-two years at different churches. With the choir, I had to sing a little to demonstrate, but it didn’t go well. [laughs] I can only sing just enough to show something.
Dean Wolfe: Well, that’s interesting that you’re a choir director. That’s kind of cool. Did you ever incorporate that into any of your albums? Did you ever have a choir sing your music?
Yelena Eckemoff: Yeah, actually, a choir sang some of my Psalms.
Setting biblical psalms to music began while I was still in the USSR and has been very important to me ever since. I have already completed two installments and plan to record the third in the next few years. This project feels essential to me. It reaches many people through my inclusive style, and I believe it’s important for listeners to experience the power of God’s Word.
Dean Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Yelena Eckemoff: There were a lot of attempts to do it, but they all were targeting a kind of narrow niche of people. The way I do it, I think it can speak to more people, but I have to find good singers. [laughs] Everything will happen in time. You will have to be patient.
Dean Wolfe: Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting, your spirituality is actually finding itself expressed in your music. So obviously you’re a spiritual person. Um, that reminds me of some of the classical composers, like Bach. God was a big thing in music. I’ve listened to most of your first albums through. Your current album is scheduled for release at the end of March. Is it right?
Yelena Eckemoff: March 28th of 2026.
Dean Wolfe: And I was inspired by how it’s sort of classical, sort of jazz, but it’s not overtly classical or overtly jazz. I’ve seen a few clips. If you go to your YouTube channel, you’ll find a video where musicians talk about their impressions of your music. There’s a common thread there. A lot of them note this interesting meshing of jazz and classical. It is really mind-boggling that you can kind of move in and out of both so naturally, almost in a liquid way, you know. Tell me a little about your compositions. It looks like sometimes you have notes, so you’ve written them out literally so you can follow them on the paper. Is it not in your head? How does that work? Is it just a guide?
Yelena Eckemoff: I definitely compose and prepare scores and lead sheets. Structures definitely come from the classical world, a world where every song has a structure, and there are always simpler or more complicated structures. Usually, rock songs are simple, and traditional jazz is too, with a head, improvisation, and choruses that return to the tune. Progressive rock has more structure and more interesting developments. But I was educated in classical music, and I can use a different structure in every song and include more than one tune. I have transitions, I have improvisations, and I line them up in a different way, and I have maybe an introduction or a prelude, or I have a coda, you know, an ending, and everything. So, it probably comes out more classical because of that. But, sound-wise, I don’t think there’s anything classical in the ‘Scenes from the Dark Ages’, apart from the structures. This music is something I composed earlier in my life, when I was influenced by rock music. So basically, when I composed in my MIDI studio, it was more in that direction. I did not even know about contemporary jazz, like ECM’s. It was in 2005 or 6 when I learned about ECM. And then I started recording with contemporary jazz musicians on the ECM label, like Arild Andersen, a bassist. And my music kind of shifted in that direction more. But I was exploring all those different ways of making sound, and I loved it, and I still do. But with the ‘Scenes from the Dark Ages’, I go back to my earlier times when I was writing more in a prog rock style than any other, before I did more jazzy stuff. It was all my tunes, of course. I didn’t use any real medieval tunes. But I intentionally, I guess, wrote those tunes to sound like medieval tunes because of the subject of my record. But, you know, this record is one of a kind. There’s not going to be any more like this. [laughs]
Dean Wolfe: Oh, okay. [laughs]
Yelena Eckemoff: It’s one of a kind. The album that I will record this year will also be something like this, but without the medieval theme. It will still be more like prog rock than jazz. I always include improvisations because I think improvisations are very meaningful. The musicians who play my scores are all great musicians, and for them to express themselves, they should improvise. When they do, they have a chance to shine. They have a chance to show what they can do. And the music works really well, too. I only work with those whom I trust because improvisations are not rehearsed. They are not written down. It’s something that I risk – in the studio. [laughs]
Dean Wolfe: Yeah. It’s funny, you know, a lot of rock music doesn’t really lend itself to improvisation, and I used to think, ‘Oh, I love jazz, but I can never play jazz.’ But I ended up kind of teaching myself and pushing myself to. I formed a band with a bunch of locals who wanted to cover Pat Metheny songs. And, playing Pat Metheny, learning his songs, was like going to university for me. It was like even though I had played guitar for decades. I grew so much, and then I started learning to do a lot more improvising live in jazz fusion. Like, right now I’ve got a duo with a piano player, actually, Dee Cooper. She plays the piano, and I play the Spanish guitar, and we do all our own music. Every song is a ton of improvisation. And yeah, improvisation is so important for a musician, and I think a lot of musicians that I’ve talked to, young upcoming guitarists, seem to get stuck sometimes. They feel like they kind of reach a sort of plateau, and every time they pick up their instrument, they just play the same licks, you know?
Yelena Eckemoff: Yeah.
Dean Wolfe: And I think jazz, more than any other kind of music, and jazz fusion too, of course, really pushes you to explore a lot more and grow a lot more. It really seems essential to do. If you want to grow as a musician, I’m not sure [laughs] there are any other genres of music that’ll force you to grow more than jazz, and I think it’s intimidating, probably. Intimidation is probably a problem for many musicians. They t
hink, ‘Oh, I can’t do that.’ But I think if you get yourself doing it. You can really tackle that, I think.
Yelena Eckemoff: Yeah, David Bowie in his ‘Black Star’ hired jazz musicians, Donny McCaslin on saxophone, Mark Guiliana on drums, and others. So basically, jazz seeps into every genre now, and of course, this jazz is not like what we used to think about jazz of traditional jazz figures like Oscar Peterson or Duke Ellington. You know, jazz is so wide, so inclusive that there’s traditional jazz now, there’s European, contemporary jazz, there’s free jazz. I guess people call jazz anything that has improvisation. So, if people improvise, they are already playing jazz. [laughs]
Dean Wolfe: Right. Right, yeah. So, we’ve got exactly two minutes left.
I’ve really enjoyed this interview and getting to know you, Yelena. I love your music, and I’m going to explore a lot more. And you’re very prolific, there’s really an incredible amount of music that you’ve created, covering lots of territories. Is there anything else you just want to mention before we wrap up?
Yelena Eckemoff: I am grateful for this interest, and I hope we will talk again someday.
Dean Wolfe: Yeah, absolutely.
Yelena Eckemoff: Dig more into it, and I hope you’re going to like what you hear because it’s all different. You are a wide musician yourself, so I would like to hear your opinion.
Dean Wolfe: Absolutely. We’ll talk again. I will be in touch and follow your progress and projects. Thanks, everybody, for watching. The links are down below, of course. You can go check out the music for yourself.