Olga Stezhko's interest in chamber music was sparked by the Trio di Parma and the legendary Trio di Trieste with whom she studied as a teenager at the United World College of the Adriatic in Italy. As an avid chamber musician, Olga has performed at international festivals with various groups including the renowned cellist Ivan Monighetti and the late Peter Cropper of the Lindsay String Quartet. She continues to collaborate with talented young musicians and chamber groups around Europe.
Since 2018, Olga is a member of the Marsyas Trio. As one of the UK's foremost mixed ensembles, the group has forged a place as a dynamic and innovative group, inspiring a generation of new works for their genre through their commissioning and recording initiatives, as well as bringing to the public lost and forgotten repertoire, in particular by women composers.
The Marsyas Trio are current Artist By-Fellows at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. In 2024 the Trio were appointed as the FUAM Ensemble in Residence at the University of Leeds, chosen out of 100 applications.
Marsyas Trio's newest album 'Alternative Readings' featuring visionary music of Michael Finnissy and released on Métier | Divine Art Recordings label in March 2024, in collaborations with award-winning mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean and Joseph Havlat, was selected as 'Chamber Choice' with a 5-star review by BBC Music Magazine (read here).
“Anyone nervous of the so-called New Complexity could do far worse than ease into this style via this recording” - *****
Olga Stezhko received the repeated invitations to take part in the triennial 'Performers(') Present' International Artistic Research Symposium in Singapore.
In October 2023 her presentation focused on how musicians can nurture the power of international solidarity in supporting post-colonial countries through collaborative artistic research. Building out on Olga's recent performing projects, it explored the resonances between the 2020 uprising in Belarus and the 2021 crisis in Myanmar, the role of music in mobilising and sustaining the protest movement, and how musicians can inspire audiences to engage in difficult conversations about freedom and post-colonial identity.
In October 2019 she presented a lecture-recital 'And the Moon Descends - At the Crossroads of East and West', in which she drew on Debussy’s piano suites in a discussion on the boundaries between creative exchange and cultural exploitation in a historical and political context, reflecting also on the essence of musical performance.
Olga was generously supported by the Help Musicians UK Transmission Fund.
For the 'Et la lune descend' album launch event in London, Olga Stezhko was thrilled to join forces with Byron Wallen, one of the most innovative and original jazz trumpet players in the world. They collaborated on piano - gamelan - trumpet arrangements of Debussy’s music.
The composer’s groundbreaking explorations in rhythm, colour and tonality were in big part inspired by traditional Indonesian gamelan music that he heard during the World Fair in Paris in 1889. Below is a video of their improvisation on Debussy's 'Pour la danseuse aux crotales' and 'Pour l'égyptienne' from the suite 'Six épigraphes antiques'.