Polina Tarasenko was born in 2001 in Kherson, Ukraine.

She began to play music very early on a drum kit in the children’s jazz group “Dixieland” in the Kherson Palace of Children’s and Youth Creativity under the guidance of Semen Ryvkin. who also taught her to play the saxophone, trumpet and trombone. As part of “Dixieland”, she regularly performed at concerts and festivals, not only in Ukraine, but also abroad. Already during this period, she combined jazz with classical music and studied piano and musical theory.

After the death of her first teacher in 2011, Polina met the Russian trombonist Alexander Nyankin on the Internet, who at that time lived and worked in Taiwan. He gave her lessons via Skype and prepared her for participation in the Rotary competition in 2013 in Moscow.

In this competition, Polina took two prizes and received an invitation from the director of the Gnessin Moscow Special School of Music to study there without entrance exams in the main specialty trombone and electives – saxophone, trumpet, composition, piano, organ. 

During her studies at the Gnessin school, Polina took part in many international competitions and festivals. She was also honored as the best student of the school in 2015 and graduated there in 2018 with highest honors.

Her many and various interests, both musical and extra-musical made it a difficult choice – but in the end she chose the classical trombone as her main path. Between 2019 – 2022, she studied at  the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover with Professor Jonas Bylund and entered the Hochschule der Künste Bern in autumn 2022 to study with Professor Ian Bousfield.

Since the beginning of her studies in Germany, Polina won prizes at many international trombone competitions in Italy, France, Germany and the USA.  She was a semi-finalist at the Aeolus Wind Competition 2019 in Düsseldorf and received three special prizes at the ARD Competition 2022 in Munich.

Polina is a scholar of various foundations like the Marous Foundation, Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Hannover, Mozart-Gesellschaft Dortmund, Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and the Swiss Hirschmann Foundation.

In the season 2020/2021, she played with the NDR Radio Philharmonie Hannover under Andrew Manze and was “debut artist in residence” at the Nikolaisaal Potsdam.

Engagements in 2022 included a concert with the Neue Lausitzer Philharmonie, a concert in Barcelona as well as her debut at the Konzerthaus Dortmund. In 2022/2023, Polina has been invited to the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt/Oder, to the Philharmonie Luxemburg, the Tonhalle Zurich and to the Philharmonie Baden-Baden.

Polina Tarasenko is also a devoted chamber musician. In July 2023, she has been invited to the Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at Schloss Bothmer and to the Gezeitenkonzerte in Ostfriesland. In 2021, she founded together with fellow students from Hannover the Anima Trombone Quartet.

Not to be altered without permission.