Students of music schools often don’t like the subject of solfeggio, or sight-singing. But that cannot be said of 13-year old Yelyzaveta Kondratenko from Dnipro, who has won at the solfeggio Olympiads in her city for two years in a row. Yelyzaveta finished music school, in the department of piano and vocals; she now writes songs, dances in the Antares Show Ballet, and attends an art school. Now she dreams of opening her own business in the future.
“My mom, when she was pregnant with me, listened to classical music. So I developed an ear for music. Music comes naturally to me. For example, in solfeggio you need to count less and listen more. I’m good at it, which is why I was sent to the solfeggio Olympiad.
Songs are something that I cannot live without. I wake up in the morning and I sing the song I have on my alarm. I go to school and hum the song that was playing in some guy’s earphones. I come home singing a song to which we danced at our dance classes. And that is how I realize that I love my life!
When I go to my dancing class, it helps me relax and boost my energy. At the music school, the atmosphere is ideal for me, as we sing and play there. When I go to the art school, it gives me an opportunity to create anything I want. I cannot choose just one thing.
Maybe I’ll manage to combine them all somehow.
I actually dream of building my own business. I’ve read a lot of books on this. Maybe it will be connected to show business or something creative.
I’ve thought about having a team where everybody treats each other well, with no envy or jealousy. I’d like everybody to be equal, so there’s no one better or worse. I’ll try to be at their level, not at a level at which they believe I’m superior and bring me coffee every day.
If you’ve reached some level, and then you have a small problem, or if you’re working with people and there’s some conflict, you just need to close your eyes and remember why you’re doing everything that you do.
Just recently, we were painting at the art school. I wasn’t doing so well and had a lot of problems. A teacher came in and said: ‘Just remember how you love to paint!’ And now I know that if something isn’t going right, you just need to remember why you’re trying so hard. For nothing, or because you love it?
I want war to just disappear, and not only in Ukraine but also in the rest of the world. When I was nine, I thought: ‘Why don’t we just do this – set up a lot of speakers so everyone can hear. Take a microphone and say: “On the count of three, stop all conflict!” Then you count to three and all conflicts go away and never start again. There are peaceful solutions to all conflicts. Why people don’t want that? Why turn it into something horrible? I’ll never be able to understand that.
I’d like adults to value the opinions of others, especially children, because children have creative thinking. Adults sometimes rely on experience, but they are all now similar, as if they were of different shapes before, but were all cut into ideal squares. Adults sometimes need to get out of their squares and create some new shapes, not to just be the same, but to live.”
