GANNA
GANNA
GANNA – UTOPIA
Mermaid ghosts, assertive Ukrainian grandmothers and traditional Peruvian grooves all feature in this eclectic and brilliant new release by the acclaimed singer and composer – Ganna Gryniva. The album UTOPIA, a collection of songs based on traditional Ukrainian melodies, along with tracks with more of an indie-pop vibe written by the composer, is released by BERTHOLD records on 17th October 2025.
Ganna Gryniva emigrated from Ukraine to Germany with her parents in 2002 and now lives in Berlin. Today, Ganna is considered “one of the most impressive singers and musicians on the European jazz and world music scene” (Ö1 radio, Austria). HOME released in November 2022 was celebrated by the music press as “Album of the Year” (Deutschlandfunk Kultur) and “Jazz Highlight of the Year” (Bayerischer Rundfunk). Her last album KUPALA was included by the Ukrainian radio station Slukh.Media in the list of “Best Ukrainian Albums 2023” and voted by LIVEUROPE the “New European Sound 2024”.
She has titled her new album UTOPIA because, as she says, “…hope is sometimes the only thing that keeps us going. The Ukrainian folk songs are part of my Utopia: A space for my country and to help make my culture visible.”
The singer’s guest musicians help creating this space: Laura Robles – percussion, Ambrose Akinmusire – trumpet, Maksym Berezhnyuk – traditional flutes, Marian Friedl – cymbal. Julian Sartorius and Andi Haberl – drums, percussion, and Bertram Burkert – guitar.
Gryniva has, with the help of friends and experts in the field, researched libraries and archives specialising in Ukrainian folk music, recording people in Ukraine singing those original songs. Tracks on the album such as Malanka are her own unique adaptations of the original music. This ritual song, discovered working with the composer and researcher Laura Robles, is about a wild carnival where people dress up and is usually performed during the feast of the same name. Robles who has lived in Peru, introduced the idea of using the quijada—a percussive instrument made of a donkey’s jawbone that creates a rattling sound when the teeth of the jawbone are struck. Gryniva loved the idea, adding a further twist to her teasing and spiky interpretation.
Mermaids, the first track (already released—and voted by the Ukraine music magazine MIXMAG as one of the “Best UA tracks 2024”) is based on a song about rituals from the Kyiv area. “People believe that if they organise a rave, ghosts from ponds and forests will emerge, but leave one alone for the rest of the year. It’s very mystical and magical music,” says Gryniva. The composer also delved into the psychology of lullabies and how they influence small children. The metaphors used can be translated literally but often carry a deeper meaning. In Baba the grandmother sings to the grandfather: “You old man, you’d better sleep now, otherwise I’ll leave you under that bench over there and follow the melody of the flute player.” The soothing tune hides the intentions of the emancipated grandmother. For Gryniva this is an important part of how Ukrainian society works. “Ukrainian women are so strong,” she says. “My grandmother was definitely the head of the family.” The composer produced this track using field recordings made in 2018 whilst visiting the Carpathian Mountains: a woman passing by with her cow, neighbours shouting something from the distance, sheep eating grass on the hills. The sounds are inserted naturally into the lyrical music. At one point in the song, you actually hear a voice saying in Ukrainian: “Why are you recording an old woman, and not a youngster.” The matriarchal theme continues in the melodic and meditative track Mother which tells of a young girl’s love for and gratitude towards the strong and resilient single woman who brought her up.
By contrast Gryniva composed some of the tracks from scratch. The idea for Zemlya, meaning earth, came from travelling in Ukraine in 2023. “It was my first time going back after the full scale Russian invasion,” she says. “I couldn’t get enough of the language, the food, the people, the conversations, the old buildings and the churches.” The song is also inspired by a Grigory Semenchuk poem in which he writes about the war.
“Maybe it’s also surprising to suddenly hear a German song Der Mann im Mond (Man in the Moon) on the album,” says the singer. “But this is also a part of me. I’ve lived a long time in Germany. There is a whole generation like this. I’m one of those people who suddenly became part of a new society but still belong to the old. It’s an important part of my identity.” Gryniva has adapted the poem of the same title by Mascha Kaléko “who speaks of dreams that come in all kinds of shapes and colours. That man’s moon-wife is weaving those dreams out of light and in the evening hides them in the trees. There is a dream for each and every one of us.”
Gryniva sees her music as improvised electro-folk with a solo. “I like to explore new things,” she says. “It’s a completely new sonic universe which draws as much from folk as jazz. I have to find my own musical language, sometimes dreamy, sometimes dancy, using synths, loops, and other musicians. I allow myself to be completely free and use what is most fitting for each song.”
Bringing all these elements together, Gryniva’s creative power has been best described by the London Jazz News: “The levels of talent – even wizardry – musicological, composer-ish, vocal – which run through her and in so many different ways are extraordinary”.
Ian Bild. July 2025
