The Official SoundCloud Page of Owl Generation.

Owl Generation is the project of award-winning British-Ukrainian accordionist Yuriy Chubarenko, a classically trained musician and graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Yuriy initially studied at the Ukrainian National Tchaikovsky Academy of Music in Kiev, before coming to London to complete his Postgraduate Diploma in Accordion Performance at the Royal Academy of Music. He has since sought musical inspiration around the world, performing in cities across Europe, Asia and the USA, and winning national and international prizes as he goes along – including the Mortimer Development Award, and the Leverhulme Award. He has also performed as a soloist with the Ukrainian National Symphony Orchestra, the Renaissance Symphony Orchestra, the Lontano Ensemble, and for BBC Radio 4. He continually seeks to establish and expand the classical accordion’s repertoire by working closely with contemporary composers, and giving performances of original pieces.

Yuriy seeks a sound that transcends language, that finds its resting place in the inroads of unuttered emotions, and contains within itself the intrinsic voice of the heart. Yuriy has travelled across many seas, growing up in the Ukraine and studying in London, capturing the essence of his – and many others’ – journeys within the keys of his instrument. But he insists that his journey is only just beginning and that the evolution of music is ongoing. We cannot ever know the next step that this gentle art will take – we can just relax, and lose ourselves in its unmodulated footsteps.

The evolution of his music is exemplified by the Owl Generation project. Owl Generation takes the dedication and discipline of classical music, fuses it with the contemporary composition of popular culture and the end result is something new. Owl Generation occupies the middle ground between traditional and contemporary. From Nirvana to Radiohead, Yuriy has picked apart his favourites at the seams and resown them with love and diligence. These new arrangements took a great deal of time, practice, love and a steady hand.

Take “Paranoid Android” - reconstructing Radiohead's Beatles inspired epic, a song often recognised as one of the greatest of all time, and which is, in fact, three songs by three different composers, took patience and time. Owl Generation’s acoustic version, fusing accordion and acoustic guitar, simultaneously attempts to capture the song's soul and set it free.

To create the unique sound of Owl Generation, Yuriy’s weapon of choice is a custom classical piano accordion “Pigini Nòva”, hand made at the Pigini accordion factory in Italy. A year in the making, Yuriy’s instrument is the “Stradivarius” of the accordion world. 

Although Owl Generation is a solo project, Yuriy is no stranger to collaboration and some of his tracks carry the fingerprints of others. Alex Chubarenko, Yuriy's brother, lends guitar to some of the tracks while the strings of Nicolaj Nielsen can be heard on “All Of Me”.

Each of Owl Generation’s tracks is decoded note by note and later rewoven by hand. The tracks were mixed by Steve Price, a mixing engineer who has worked with names like Adele and Sam Smith. When it came to mastering Placebo’s classic track “Meds”, Price suggested involving Grammy-winning mastering engineer Tim Young who mastered the original track. The result is a unique style and feel of music that pulls the accordion firmly into the mainstream.

So far the focus has been on arranging alternative rock anthems, but Yuriy has big plans for Owl Generation and his eyes are fixed firmly on creating original compositions soon.

Owl Generation's definitive article is at once bold and cautious, strong and fragile and gloriously melancholic.

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Musical Artist who enjoys and has a passion for music. I'm also part of a music group called CMG Certified Music and we are based in the Cardiff area

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