‘WHITE NIGHT’ is out now on all platforms.

“White Night” is based on three poems by legendary Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), with Pankovits’ own lyrics condensing them into two verses. The poems range from Akhmatova’s first book of poems, published in 1912: Vecher (Evening), to work from the 1960s, a few years before her death.
The three poems are about parting, loss, and memory, sometimes bittersweet, the complexity of love and its end and remembering it or anticipating remembering it.

​Plaintive trumpet and piano set the mood for a beautiful mid-tempo ballad that can stand, musically and lyrically and vocally, with the best of Joni Mitchell’s and Sade’s relationship ruminations. It’s jazz yet also beyond genre—an adult pop song. Trumpet obligatos shadow the vocal like memory commenting on/reacting to the actual events. The song’s four-and-a-half minutes fly by, squeezing a wealth of emotion into a short, easily flowing structure of masterful songwriting and arrangement.

“White Night” is being released on the 58th anniversary of Akhmatova’s death. 

lyrics

LYRICS:
There will be thunder then. Remember me.
You’ll say ‘ She asked for storms.’
The entire world will turn the color of crimson stone,
and your heart as then, will turn to fire.

That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy,
when for the last time I say goodbye,

soaring to the heavens that I longed to see,
leaving my shadow here in the sky.

See that dark house again.
Only one candle glows,
A yellow, complacent, flame.

See, how the fields die down,
In the sunset gloom of firs,
I still hear the echo of your voice

That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy,
when for the last time I say goodbye,
soaring to the heavens that I longed to see,
leaving my shadow here in the sky.

Lyrics by Nikolett Pankovits

Based on poems by Anna Akhmatova: Moscow trefoil: Almost into the album, White Night, Song of the Last Meeting

credits

released March 5, 2024
Nikolett Pankovits – voice
Josh Deutsch – trumpet
Juancho Herrera – guitar
Manu Koch – piano
Bam Rodriguez – upright bass
Franco Pinna – drums

Music by Nikolett Pankovits
Lyrics by Nikolett Pankovits – based on poems by Anna Akhmatova: Moscow trefoil: Almost into the album, White Night, Song of the Last Meeting

RECORDED BY
Marc Urselli at Eastside Sound Studio, New York City

MIXED AND MASTERED BY
Dave Darlington at Bass Hit Recording, New York City

PRODUCER
Nikolett Pankovits

DESIGNER
Dragana/Aleksandar

PHOTO BY
Tímea Jaksa

Nikolett Pankovits
Song for my father

We’ve recorded a beautiful Hungarian song, ‘Várlak’ (Waiting for you) that I used to sing with my father when I was a child.
It was written by one of the best Hungarian composers, Gábor Presser. His songs resonate with so many generations. Thank you Pici for this beautiful song and inspiration!

Thanks to Juancho Herrera for playing the guitar so beautifully and Lázár Todoroff for the video & audio recording! It was a true pleasure to create with both of you.

I dedicate this song to my father. Thank you for all the music that you showed me!

Special thanks to Studio Madison for the space and for all the help & support to Tímea Jaksa, Kati Néveri and Pál Szabó! https://studiomadison.hu

Nikolett Pankovits
New Single 'Come By The Sea'

Listen here

Pankovits has initiated a new project that is planned to eventually grow into an album.
“In the Colors project I want to showcase the beauty of diversity in my life. Connecting the content to this idea, the lyrics will be poems by international poets—covering different continents. I would like to put out singles that we will connect visually and release a record with these songs once all the singles are out. Each song and poem will connect to a color theme.”

This track exists outside of genre boundaries, stripped to the essentials of music—lush harmonies, bountiful melodies, lithe rhythms—that of course relate to jazz but transcend it. Starting with Jon Cowherd's solo piano that feels like a gentle caress, it blossoms when Pankovits sings, joined by sensually resonant double bass by Carlos Henderson.
She has written lyrics (first and last verses) that frame an emotionally charged reading, in the middle, of an excerpt from the 1865 verse drama Chastelard by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909). They are tinged with the poet’s trademark eroticism—not that there’s anything radio will have to censor; it’s a paean to longing crowned with realization, then recalled in a warm haze of memory.
Pankovits’ verses give it more permanency and a lot more optimism as she moves at the end from the sea to the sky in a hopeful ascent. Her music, always highly personal, reaches a new level of intimacy on “Come By the Sea.”

Nikolett Pankovits
New video by the Hudson River

Song: Tele van a sötét égbolt ragyogó csillaggal (“The dark firmament is filled with shining stars”)—Erdély (Transylvania)

Guitar: Juancho Herrera

Vocals: Nikolett Pankovits

Song is on album ‘River’ by Nikolett Pankovits, produced by Juancho Herrera

Video: Cristobal De La Cuadra

New York, 2021

Nikolett Pankovits
Review of 'River' and 'Magia'

New review in from Canada by Raul da Gama!

Thank you very much Raul!

Nikolett Pankovits: River In keeping with its idiomatic title, the repertoire of this disc flows mightily from one song to the next. It is as if the music is meant to take us – body and soul – into another world.

Read full review here

Nikolett Pankovits