Kristina Aglinz

Los Angeles - based contemporary jazz vocalist, songwriter and classical concert pianist Kristina Aglinz has released “Heaven Is Shining Bright” her first-ever original single and the opening release from her forthcoming debut album, due in the middle of 2027. Written by Aglinz with lyrics by Anatoly Berlin, “Heaven Is Shining Bright” introduces an artist whose musical life has long moved freely between classical music, jazz, soul, funk and pop. At its center is the spiritual worldview that has increasingly shaped Aglinz’s work: a belief in love, hope and beauty as sources of strength even during life’s most difficult moments.

“I believe God is love,” Aglinz says. “That belief is at the heart of my life and my music. I want to create music that brings hope, light, peace and beauty. Even in difficult moments, we are never alone.”

The single marks the beginning of a new chapter for Aglinz, who has spent decades performing across concert halls, jazz clubs, television studios and orchestral stages, but is now releasing original music under her own name for the first time. Her forthcoming album will bring together songs written across different periods of her life, newly arranged and recorded to reflect the musician and person she has become. That musical identity began taking shape in Samara, where Aglinz grew up in a household immersed in music. Her mother was a piano teacher, while her father was a jazz trombonist who spent roughly 35 years performing with a big band and returned from international tours carrying recordings of American jazz, soul and funk artists that were difficult to find in the Soviet Union.

One of those recordings was Al Jarreau’s Breakin’ Away. Aglinz played the cassette until it physically wore out, memorizing its melodies, phrasing and vocal improvisations along the way. “That was my real musical education,” she says. At the same time, Aglinz was immersed in rigorous classical training. She entered music school at five and ultimately earned a master’s degree in piano performance, developing the virtuosity that would later allow her to perform classical repertoire at a professional level while building a parallel career as a jazz vocalist, songwriter and bandleader. For Aglinz, those musical worlds were never separate. “It was all in one,” she says.“Everything all in one.” 

After completing her classical piano education, she formed her own band and began performing jazz publicly, eventually appearing with big bands and symphony orchestras as both vocalist and pianist. An early visit to Los Angeles for the World Championships of Performing Arts became a pivotal moment in her career when she received the Overall Grand Champion title and a Gold Medal in Jazz Vocal.

Years later, music brought her back to Los Angeles to build a life and pursue new collaborations. Among them was a creative relationship with the late Grammy-winning arranger and producer Jorge Calandrelli, who worked with Aglinz on arrangements of her original songs. As the years passed, however, she began hearing that material differently.

“I am a different person right now,” she says. That realization ultimately became the foundation for the album she is creating today. Rather than preserving earlier songs exactly as they were first conceived, Aglinz is returning to their emotional core and reshaping them through the perspective of the artist she has become.

“Heaven Is Shining Bright” serves as the first expression of that process and of the message she hopes to carry throughout the project. For Aglinz, music has always been the clearest way to communicate.

“If you ask me what my native language is, I can’t say any language except music, ” she says. “This language allows me to communicate with people very easily.” With “Heaven Is Shining Bright, ” that language now opens the door to her first body of original recorded work, tracing a journey from the piano bench in Samara to stages around the world and, finally, to an album built around the many musical traditions that have shaped her life.“There is still beauty in every person, in nature and in life, ” Aglinz says.