Hey my name is Claudia Svitlana and here’s a little bit about me!

I’m a singer/songwriter originally from the Ukraine, currently living in the south of Spain who has quite the odd story of how I even started music.

I grew up listening to Classical music at home since I was very young. My mother worked at home in her studio with Mozart, Bach, Chopin and many more insanely talented composers who shared their magic with us. I started developing a tiny connection with music at an early age and I have to admit that I could now probably hum the melodies of a song that I must have listened to a thousand times years ago after only listening to the starting tunes.

Music in general is a beautiful thing, and throughout my school years I slowly became more curious in finding out what it was all about. I started taking piano lessons at the age of seven and surprisingly was quite good at it, but my attention span and patience was close to null, so I stopped once it required more time and 'practice' (I HATED practice!). We all want instant knowledge about everything without having to make the effort to learn!

Since very young, I enjoyed singing to the music my father played while driving me to school every day, classic artists such as Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Oasis, Madonna, Annie Lenox, Cat Stevens… You name it! I then asked my parents to book me a vocal lesson with a music teacher at school, and let me tell you, I was VERY far from being an 'ok' singer, I couldn’t hit a single note, to the point where the vocal coach couldn’t handle me anymore and shoved me off to a different teacher.

I had vocal lessons for about seven years with a very good vocal coach who always supported me and believed I had it in me to become a great singer someday. I even remember when in one of my vocal lessons she mentioned that she had finally managed to get me to cross a vocal bridge which had been an obstacle for years. Unfortunately, at school I was never allowed to perform much since as I had quite a tense relationship with the main music teacher. I also used to get extremely nervous when performing on stage, to the point where my voice wobbled and warbled uncontrollably.

Funnily enough, my only goal with taking vocal lessons had been to gain a basic grasp on singing in order to sing covers and post them on Instagram or YouTube. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, you might be wondering… Claudia, how did you get into songwriting then?

Well… My school had a “music building” where all music teachers had these tiny practice studios, crammed right next to each other. So, while I was having vocal lessons, I could hear the drummers bashing away on one side and the trumpet players honking away on the other… the paper-thin walls certainly didn’t help. But because of those paper-thin walls, I could also hear the beautiful strings that were being played in the studio where the guitar teacher worked. I started to get more familiar with him since he was basically “the cool music teacher” everyone liked because he had a very 'youthful' and outgoing personality. After a while I began to notice how he would look into the small circular window that was in the door to see who was singing and noticed that it was me. He mentioned that I had a very unique voice that not many people had. As a 15-year-old you let it slide and take it as a “oh he’s only trying to be nice”, but he constantly reminded me. As I loved the sound of the guitar, I decided to learn the basics with him to accompany my voice with the guitar.

I recall when during a lesson he asked me if I had ever written a song, and I just laughed and took it as a joke; how could I ever write as song, I’m not creative, what would I write about? I then kept doing what I was doing for a while until December 2019 when he posted a very beautiful loop on his Instagram which I commented on saying how much I loved it. Funnily enough he asked me if I wanted to write over a track he’d do especially for me involving that loop.

December 24th 2019, I was on the train heading back home from Madrid when I received a notification from my guitar teacher with an attached MP4… I was quite baffled and bored at the same time, so I thought to myself why not just give it a listen and see what it’s all about. I’m telling you; the moment I heard that guitar loop with the soft snare and kick, I fell in love with it.
I began to hum a melody over the track until I found the right one. And THAT’S how I created my first ever song which is now called 'New Lover'.

And that’s how it all began, I become more and more obsessed with creating new songs on basic piano chords, I sent my ideas to my guitar teacher and he made tracks out of them. It’s a crazy story. But to sum things up, I was fortunate to finish six beautiful songs with him. Sadly, he had to move away and could no longer produce for me, so I put music on hold again for a few months, until COVID and quarantine happened… which gave me a wonderful opportunity to meet a talented producer who inspired me to give it another try, but this time, alone. Since then I have found such a deep passion for music, I can hardly believe how far I’ve come independently.

In a nutshell I am extremely excited to show you what my music is all about!