Nataliia Karpenko

Nataliia hails from Shevchenkove, the birthplace of Ukraine’s great bard of freedom, Taras Shevchenko. She earned her degree from Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University with a specialty in culture and arts education.

Her career began in 2001, when she moved to Belarus and served as Deputy Director of the Novohutsk Regional Center for Culture and Leisure. From 2008 to 2018 she returned home, teaching music and choral singing at a school-college complex, leading the choir at Uman National University of Horticulture, and conducting the amateur folk choir in the Shevchenkove Village House of Culture. From 2018 to 2022 she was Director of the Shevchenkove Center for Culture and Leisure.

Nataliia continually sharpens her skills through seminars and workshops, including professional development at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv in cultural-arts management. Since 2023 she has taught music and performing arts at St. Michael’s Ukrainian School in San Francisco, nurturing young voices and stage confidence.

She loves choral singing, reading, and writing poetry and short stories. Deeply devoted to Ukraine, her family, children, and friends, she lives by the motto: “The sun will never fade!”