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A pianist, a cellist, and ... a ballerina?
The combination might seem offbeat, but that’s exactly what Miranda Vukasovic loves about it. The Croatian pianist and singer-songwriter is best known for fronting local rock and soul-infused band The Radiance, which frequently performs at venues like DDC and Aotu Space and channels the work of Nina Simone and David Bowie, two of Vukasovic's biggest inspirations.
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However, Vukasovic is planning a more intimate and boundary-pushing engagement tonight at TRB Hutong. Backed by cellist Heike Wyler (who hails from Berlin and has played everything from bluegrass to classical music at hutong bars across Beijing for years) and accompanied by Feng Qiujing, who dances for the National Ballet of China, Vukasovic says the multidisciplinary performance is unlike anything else she has attempted.
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As Feng puts on interpretative dances to the music, Wyler and Vukasovic will play some of the Croatian songwriter's original songs. For one of those newer numbers "I don't have lyrics for yet," the warmly friendly Vukasovic admits with a sly grin during a recent interview ahead of the show. She says the concert will also feature her brand new single "Forever, It's Just Too Long," along with acoustic renditions of songs she has recorded and released with The Radiance on the 2016 album Soft Machine (which you can listen to here). Among the Soft Machine songs that she plans to perform tonight is the fan favorite "Paper Airplane," which Vukasovic says is about "transforming pain into something as light as air, folding my pain into a paper airplane and letting it go, or tying my tears into a rope of twisted wind."
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The heartache conveyed in that Radiance song is inspired in part by a friend who passed on, but also by other relatable, more routine trials that many of us face while pursuing our passions. Vukasovic recalls some of her first gigs at small Beijing hutong venues, where the crowd all but recoiled at her then amateurish performance. She smiles at the memory now but says it was more than humbling at the time, but that such setbacks encouraged her to keep pushing.
Before that, she had spent 10 years working as an architect, a job that brought her around the world to locales as varied as Italy, Mexico, and New York before arriving in Beijing six years ago. Though she loved the job, Vukasovic longed to pursue more artistic endeavors than architecture and began a custom jewelry business called MV for which she makes and sells her wares. That jewelry is partially steeped in her architectural training – she's made earring inspired by New York skyscrapers and rings that designed in continuous, unbroken loops. She sells those items at Rechenberg, a long hidden gem near Xinyuan Xili for whom the proprietors sell custom clothing made with a meticulous southern Chinese dying method (Rechenberg will change locations soon in part due to Beijing's endless year-long redevelopment dust-up; click here to see deals in the brand's moving sale).
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Having decided to leave architecture, Vukasovic dove headlong not only into jewelry making but also her other passion: music. "After 10 years of architecture, I quit, because my dream is to become a rock and roll star. And I said 'Ok, if I don’t try it now, I never will.'”
Though in Vukasovic's eyes her first gigs were less than successful, she stuck with it, moving up from hutong hole in the wall open mics to bigger and bigger sets and more established venues like DDC and Aotu, forming The Radiance and writing and recording their album. After tonight's performance at TRB, Vukasovic will venture to LA for a few months this spring, pursuing a promising opportunity to write and record a follow-up LP (the details for which she says she can't disclose just yet).
In the meantime, Vukasovic is more than content to focus on the TRB show. "It's such an honor for me to play an elegant concert like this in such a beautiful space," she says, adding that feeling is especially compounded by the memory of her humble, subpar gigs and the ground she's covered since then. "I never thought my music would bring me to such a venue, but it just shows that the more time you play, the more experience you build and the more complete you become."
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Miranda Vukasovic will headline an acoustic show called Shedding The Light at TRB Hutong tonight (Dec 12) at 7.30pm. Tickets are RMB 200 at the door. For more information, click here.
Photos courtesy of Miranda Vukasovic