Public Republic

Vanya Nikolaeva

Vladiswar Nadishana is a Siberian composer and multi-instrumentalist whose music style has a deep connection with ethnic fusion, ethnic jazz and world fusion. He plays on more than 100 instruments and the unique approach of his art is influenced by various world music traditions. He has created some experimental musical instruments: dzuddahord, plastrimbaphon, pin-sansa, rablorrum, rod-spring gamelan, etc.
Vladiswar is also working with dance, videoart and web design.

“In fact I didn’t decide to be a professional musician. I was just not able to resist to play music. I started to learn my first instrument when I was 15. At that time, I was crazy about playing the guitar with no conscious decision to be a professional musician or so. And I was eager to try certain styles of rarely performed music which was very hard to find in the Russian countryside those days. In Russia, for one to decide to be a musician, playing this kind of weird music, means you are crazy. There is no market for it.”

Vladiswar began playing quitar in 1990 in Sankt-Petersburg, Russia. He also mastered ethnic percussion (darabuka, djembe, frame drums, berimbao…); fretless bass, mandola, sitar, chanzy, bouzouki, jew’s harp, khomus, winds (bansuri, overtone flutes, zhaleyka, gayda, hu-lu-si, bawu…) and others.

Vladiswar is the founder of Sound Microsurgery Department – a creative research laboratory working on different projects and research about the influence of musical instruments on human consciousness and the internal organs of the human body.

“I would mention 2 instruments which fit both criteria – harder to learn and closer to the heart. I got them recently, they had been a dream for me for a long time.

They belong to the group which I call “hybrid instruments”. The first one is Dzuddachord, the combination of sitar, guitar and mandola, double-neck. It is three instruments in one. Hard to practice, but you get rewarded with unique sound and amazing flexibility.

The second one is a “hybrid kaval” – an end-blown flute, a blend of Turkish kaval, Persian ney, Khakassian khobrakh and Armenian blul. On this one it is possible to play in 4 different embouchure positions and it has a 9-hole fingering system. This flute is extremely hard to play, but it has endless capabilities of tone variation and chromatic scale in the range of 3 octaves!

Both were custom made for me and both are still in progress of development. And I am still learning to play both of them.”

Vladiswar is the owner of a collection of more than 100 music instruments from various countries.

Vladiswar Nadishana is currently living in Berlin. He is now working on several projects, such as 4th race trio and a solo program, in which more than 20 rare ethnic instruments are presented.

“I want to create a particular reality or, one can say, a certain universe. Music is the tool for me to do this. And I guess this is true not only for me; any music works in this way. Music is a generator of realities.”

“I would love to play in India and South-East Asia, never been there.”