“Intuition or, in other words, improvisation” were the first words Anastassiya’s mentor said when she decided to change her musical direction from classical music to jazz.
Anastassiya Petrova is a jazz pianist/organist from Kazakhstan and has been a participant in international festivals in Italy, Bulgaria, Russia, Panama, Costa Rica, and the US.
Her music emphasizes the process of improvisation led by intuition, and the energy exchange between fellow musicians and the audience. Her music material varies from original jazz music to rock covers involving Hammond organ as well as piano. Her influences include contemporary jazz pianists Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Brad Mehldau, and jazz organists such as Larry Goldings, Jack McDuff, and Joey DeFrancesco. She considers herself a jazz player with a strong classical background, integrating the Hammond organ into her projects as well piano. Developing personal projects in settings of jazz piano trio, jazz quintet, and organ trio/quartet allowed her to give life to her own Kazakh folk and jazz arrangements and compositions.
In 2015 Anastassiya was mentored by renowned musicians such as John Patitucci, Danilo Perez, Joe Lovano, Terri Lyne Carrington, Ben Street, George Garzone, and others. She holds bachelor’s degree in Performance and Professional Music from Berklee College of Music and a master’s degree from Berklee Global Jazz Institute majoring in Global Jazz Performance.
Throughout her musical career, she has been given opportunities to share the stage with renowned musicians such as Noah Preminger, Allan Chase, Patricia Perez, Ben Street, Adam Cruz, Marco Pignataro, Ellis Hall, Catherine Russell, Dave Liebman and others. She participated in international festivals such as Umbria Jazz Festival 2013 (Italy), Wave of Ideas 2015 (Bulgaria), Panama Jazz Festival 2020, 2021 (Panama), Beantown Jazz Festival 2018 (Boston, MA), Monterey Jazz Festival 2018 (Monterey, CA), and appeared at “The Voice” TV show in Kazakhstan and TEDx Talks at Suffolk University.