Polina Pohozha (b. 1997, Odesa, Ukraine) is a pianist, composer, sound artist, and artist based in Gothenburg, Sweden. After completing her master’s degree at A.V. Nezhdanova Odesa National Academy of Music, she was forced to move to Sweden due to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. There, she began studying musical composition at the Gotland School of Music Composition and actively continues her musical projects.

Her musical practice is currently focused on exploring identity—national, musical, and deeply psychological—through experimental solo and group free improvisation, musical composition, and piano performance. Her pianistic repertoire spans a wide range of solo and chamber works from the Baroque era to the present day, with a special focus on Ukrainian composers and minimalists. Her performance style can be described as impetuous, emotional, and powerful, while also demonstrating a unique relationship with melody, fragility, and silence. Polina works with strong contrasts, offering a distinctly personal interpretation.

In her free improvisation practice, she works with prepared piano, voice, and objects, exploring timbre and textures as part of dramaturgy. Her music is an organic flow, a wave, a spontaneous dialogue between structure and chaos, where classical tradition, folk echoes, jazz, minimalism, and free improvisation intertwine. She is inspired by visual imagery and color, translating these elements into sound.

As a composer, Polina perceives sound through its relationships and connections, exploring mixtures and musical time while improvising through narrative storytelling that emerges in the moment of writing.

Her previous solo piano and chamber music teachers include Lidia Pravdina, Lyudmila Sinyak, Viktoria Kulchytska, Tatyana Shevchenko, Anatoliy Kardashev, Natalia Mogilevska, and Lyudmila Zima. Her composition teachers include Joseph Lake, Ida Lundén and Marcus Wrangö, and she has also received tutoring and participated in masterclasses with Theresia Ulvo, Farzia Fallah, George Lewis, Malin Bång, and Oscar Bianchi.

She actively performs solo and as part of various ensembles, such as Kult., VARP., and Ranges Collective. In February 2024, VARP released their first experimental album, Deal with Bergman (label RIGHT BRAIN RECORDS), which explores group improvisation and sound experimentation. During her residency at Casa della Musica San Michele in 2024 (Italy), she recorded two albums with Ranges Collective and Ensemble Collettivo Crisis, as well as an EP with Clémence Manachère, set for release in 2026. Polina is currently working on her solo free improvisation/composition album.

Her piece Fireflies for mixed ensemble will be performed at Archipel Festival in April in Switzerland. In August, she will collaborate with NYKA on her string quartet In The Box.

Polina has participated as a performer and composer at international festivals such as 2days2nights, Dzenzelivka Classical Week, Kontinent Dalsland, Påskfestivalen Gotland, Ljudvågor, Bergmanveckan, FRST, Festspillene (Klassik Link), and the International Young Composers Academy Ticino. As a composer, she has collaborated with Musikkonservatoriet Falun, GotlandsMusiken, Ivo Nilsson, Jörgen Pettersson, Uppsala Kammarsolister, and ICE.

She has received grants and scholarships from DBW, Region Gotland, Konstmusiksyster, and STIM. She was also an artist-in-residence at the Bergman Estate on Fårö and participated in the Improvisation Residency at Casa della Musica San Michele.