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<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nThe former Bering Strait vocalist does it all to keep the music playing \u00a0<\/b>
\nBorn and raised in Obninsk, Russia, Lydia Salnikova grew up idolizing American music. The classically trained pianist wasn\u2019t alone, and joined five other like-minded local musicians to form Bering Strait. It was an unusual grouping\u2014a band of Russian teens obsessed with American bluegrass and country, in a city 60 miles outside Moscow. But over the next half-dozen years and a bunch of trips to Nashville, they caught the attention of Music Row executives who signed them to a record deal.<\/p>\n
They relocated to the U.S. in the late 1990s and eventually released two albums. A Grammy nomination followed, and their saga became the subject of a 60 Minutes<\/i> segment and a film, The Ballad of Bering Strait<\/i>. Yet by 2006 success eluded them, and the band broke up. \u201cMajor labels\u2019 job is to make money with your music,\u201d says Salnikova. \u201cAnd we were musicians from Russia who had a whole other dimension to us, a Russianness. Quite frankly, they just didn\u2019t know what to do with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salnikova, 33, embarked on a solo career and landed session work for artists as diverse as Kenny Rogers and actor Christopher Lee. In 2010, she released her debut album, Hallway<\/i>, on her own Collyde Records label. Two years later she moved to Knoxville, Tenn., and recently released her new album Valentine Circle<\/i>. \u201cMy solo sound is different from Bering Strait\u2019s on many levels,\u201d Salnikova says. \u201cRather than five instrumentalists in the mix, it\u2019s just me and my piano and whatever comes out when I sit and write. You\u2019re hearing a one-woman orchestra. When you\u2019re on a major label, that helps define what you can and can\u2019t do. But when you\u2019re stirring your own juices and trying different sounds and samples, you never know what\u2019s going to come out. It\u2019s exciting and scary at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Hallway<\/i> and Valentine Circle <\/i>found Salnikova taking charge of the albums\u2019 production, engineering and mixing. \u201cAt times it was a challenge,\u201d she says. \u201cThe technical part is obviously something I had to learn as I went along. But in this day and age, an independent artist can do it themselves if they have the time and the knack for it.\u201d Salnikova\u2019s DIY decision was motivated by practical concerns. \u201cI didn\u2019t want just any producer,\u201d she says. \u201cI might have found somebody who made me sound better, but not anyone I could afford. So I had to take everything at my disposal, punch forward and hope the momentum created will attract the right elements.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those elements was funding via the Kickstarter website. \u201cAs an independent artist, my number one task\u2014other than creating the music\u2014is reaching my fan base,\u201d she continues. \u201cI reached out on Kickstarter and asked for support to help me press my albums. That way I could invest the time to come up with the best music I could. I\u2019ll pursue anything that helps me continue to make music and keep getting better, whatever avenue or shape that might take. It\u2019s a never-ending educational process. But when there was a choice of making music or not making music, it wasn\u2019t a question for me. I took it upon myself, and I hope listeners like the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listeners have been thrilled with the results, including some far away\u2014one of Salnikova\u2019s songs has been played during a NASA space mission. Closer to home, her own ambitions remain well grounded. \u201cI don\u2019t see my role as a worldwide star,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to make music for everybody. I just put one foot in front of the other and continue to work on my craft. If the music is there and it touches people, what more can I ask for?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013Lee Zimmerman<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LYDIA SALNIKOVA The former Bering Strait vocalist does it all to keep the music playing \u00a0 Born and raised in Obninsk, Russia, Lydia Salnikova grew up idolizing American music. The classically trained pianist wasn\u2019t alone, and joined five other like-minded local musicians to form Bering Strait. It was an unusual grouping\u2014a band of Russian teens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[6169,6166,6172,6174,6173,6164,6171,6175,6165,6167,6168,6176,6170,6177],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9277"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9280,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9277\/revisions\/9280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}