Tuning for Ukrainian pianist and TV winner Daria
Daria Golovchenko was five when she began to learn the piano from a keyboard drawn on a piece of paper. Her family didn’t own a piano.
Fast forward and in June 2024 a performance of Astor Piazzolla’s lively Libertango in Edinburgh Waverley train station spun her to the finals of Channel 4's The Piano.
Paul the Piano Tuner writes:
'I first tuned her piano when Daria arrived in Yorkshire. Since then I have tuned for a couple of her concerts and put her in touch with other people in the trade.
'I now look after the piano she won on the TV series The Piano and I will be tuning for her concert at Holmfirth high school in August .'
Daria chose Libertango for more than simply its passion. The title is Piazzolla’s own creation, a blend of the Spanish ‘Libertad’, meaning ‘freedom’, and the Argentine tango, of the composer’s home nation.
“Liberty is a freedom, tango – a dance of passion,” she told The Piano viewers.And freedom is very important now for all of us, because you have to be free here, and here,” she said, pointing to her head and heart.
Daria fled her hometown of Kherson with her daughter after Russia invaded Ukraine. “War started and all our lives changed completely,” she said. “Just 10 kilometres from my house was the international airport, and it was bombed every single day.
"We didn’t have food and I had a child,” she continued. “No nappies, no medication. I was thinking: do I want to keep living like this? No. So I have to try to go, to leave. It was the most difficult decision of my life. To leave my family, to leave my hometown. To leave Ukraine.”
After arriving in the UK, Daria said it took her time to feel able to return to the piano. “It was like a dancer who didn’t dance for a long time,” she said.
Daria became emotional as she described how it felt to be separated from her parents and siblings: “I have to start my life again. You’re not with your family, you’re here. You live your life. They’re there. I don’t know when I’ll see them again. Before the war, piano was just an instrument to me. But here, it helped me to be myself.”