Karolina Protsenko

Karolina Protsenko is a popular violinist.

She has more than 8.2M subscribers on her YouTube channel, ‘Karolina Protsenko Violin.’

Introduction-

Karolina Protsenko was born on 3 October 2008 in Kyiv, Ukraine into a musical family.

Her father, Nikolay Protsenko, was born in Ukraine and her mother, Ella Protsenko, was born in the Soviet Union (Russia).

Nikolay is a guitarist, and Ella is a pianist and a singer.

Karolina has two younger brothers, Leo Protsenko and Nicholas Protsenko; both of them were born in the United States.

Born	Karolina Protsenko; 3 October 2008, Kyiv, Ukraine
Occupation	Part-time violinist, singer, and YouTuber
YouTube channels	‘Karolina Protsenko Violin,’ ‘Karolina Protsenko’ and ‘Karolina Protsenko Vlog,’ ‘Karolina Protsenko Voice’
Years active on YouTube	2018-present
Genre	Violin, music (‘Karolina Protsenko Violin’)
Subscribers	8.28M on ‘Karolina Protsenko Violin,’ 900K on ‘Karolina Protsenko,’ 439K on ‘Karolina Protsenko Vlog’ and 315K on ‘Karolina Protsenko Voice’
Busking location	Promenade, Santa Monica
Residence	California

Karolina Protsenko information

Migrating to the U.S.-

While living in Ukraine, Nikolay was very successful with his online store.

He was also a hodophile and travelled to around 15 countries.

During that time, his dream was to live in a foreign country for a while and at that time, his in-laws got a Green Card (Permanent Resident Card) and they moved to the United States and acquired U.S. citizenship.

As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine erupted in 2014, Nikolay and Ella decided to migrate from Ukraine to the United States for their safety.

So, a year later, in 2015, they along with the 6-year-old Karolina migrated from Ukraine to United States.

Love for violin-

At 5, her mother taught her a few music basics and at 6, Karolina badly wanted to play a musical instrument.

So, her parents asked her to choose between playing a saxophone and a violin and she chose violin.

Karolina started practising playing violin daily and also started taking violin lessons and quickly fell in love with violin.

She started with Suzuki violin book volume 1 and eventually, completed seven volumes of this book.

Initially, Karolina found playing violin to be very easy but eventually she found playing pieces to be difficult but thanks to her love for violin, she persisted.

She attended Oregon City Music Academy, Oregon and learnt violin under Elisa Boynton.

Elisa was her first violin teacher in the United States, and she encouraged Karolina to daily practice for at least 30 minutes, which she followed, and this greatly helped in her success.

In one of her 2021 YouTube videos, she stated that she practices playing pop songs and classical music on her violin every day for three hours and in one of her November 2023 videos, she stated that she practices two hours daily.

After moving to California, she started learning violin under Armando Anto and then, under Sam Fischer; he works at Colburn School, California.

Karolina practices pop songs with her mother and classical music with her violin teacher, Mr. Fischer.

In one of her November 2023 videos, she stated that she worked on Mendelssohn violin concerto before switching to the traditional classical violin method.

Her inspiration-

At 6, Karolina stumbled upon a YouTube video of Lindsey Stirling in which she was simultaneously playing violin and dancing.

She was inspired by her and as during that time, she didn’t know dancing, she started taking ballet classes and she too wanted to play violin by dancing much like Lindsey.

And at 8, Karolina attended a Lindsey Stirling’s Christmas concert.

She is an avid watcher of Lindsey’s videos.

A talented musician-

Apart from violin, Karolina can also play guitar and can also sing.

She learnt hundreds of songs on violin by ear and doesn’t use music sheets.

Since 2017, Karolina has been busking.

She also sells her music CDs and in a few of her videos, she partnered with Daniele Vitale Sax, a popular sax performer.

Karolina’s future plan is to travel the world performing violin concerts and reach even more people and write her own music.

Public performances-

Once while walking down Santa Monica Pier along with her family and friends, Karolina noticed a variety of performers playing various instruments including violin, guitar and dancing, drawing, etc.

At the time, she wanted to earn money so that she could spend and save; so she decided to street perform and her parents supported her decision.

At 8, Karolina did her first public performance at Venice Beach.

The first experience wasn’t good as she was yelled at by a sand sculptor as she was attracting his audience and her mother didn’t want Karolina to continue her public performances.

But Nikolay convinced Ella to let her continue and both of them started accompanying Karolina to the performances.

Her second busk was at Santa Monica, California and it was successful, she performed for 45 minutes and earned $80; she played pieces in Suzuki book 2.

Then, Karolina started performing at Pier and then at Promenade; as of November 2023, she plays violin at Promenade.

A celebrity-

Karolina is an internet celebrity, and this is evident by her millions of followers across various social media platforms.

As of February 2024, she has 8.28M subscribers on ‘Karolina Protsenko Violin’ YouTube channel, 900K subscribers on her eponymous channel, 439K subscribers on ‘Karolina Protsenko Vlog’ channel, and 315K subscribers on ‘Karolina Protsenko Voice’ channel.

Her violin covers on popular songs are very popular on YouTube and she also performed for numerous charity events.

Her family also has a YouTube channel, ‘The Protsenko Family.’

As of February 2024, Karolina has 10M followers on Facebook and 1.2M followers on Instagram.

She finished her schooling in May 2022 and lives in California.

Some interesting facts about Karolina-

Karolina’s favourite singers are Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Celine Dion.
Light blue and white are her favourite colours.
Her hobbies are writing journals and glueing pictures. She also likes writing affirmations, biking, baking, travelling, trampolining and stationery.
Karolina is fluent in English and Russian.
She loves dark chocolate and is a vegetarian.
Karolina tried for America’s Got Talent reality show but couldn’t qualify for it.
She was born very flexible and could split her legs without any pain.
Karolina appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and received $1,000 from Ellen.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Karolina Protsenko?

Share with me in the comment section below.

Featured image credit- Kpfan12/Wikimedia Commons

Guillermo

Monday 11th of December 2023

Hello, Naveen,

As a KP fan and Wikipedia's Spanish co-editor of her article, I commend you for your (mostly) veracious article. However, I'd like to clarify and suggest a few things.

First, Nikolay, Ella and Karolina Protsenko are only presumed to have gained US citizenship, but this is not a confirmed fact. Of course, the younger kids, Leo and Nicholas, are US citizens as they were born in there, but the former three may still be residents. the US Citizenship process may, and usually takes, many years. Second: technically both Nikolay and Ella Protsenko were born in the Soviet Union (both were born in 1986), as Ukraine was then also part of the USSR.

False: they live in Washington and KP finished her schooling in 2022. You, as many people, probably took as a true fact a certain video in where her parents manifested their intention to move to the Spokane area, in Washington State, but at the end of said video they asserted that they would not be moving precisely is spite of providing Karolina better career opportunities in California. They still live in the Greater Los Angeles area and KP currently attends her freshman high school year in a private hybrid-type school. Karolina also attends community school at the Colburn School in downtown L.A., the most prestigious conservatory in the West Coast, in where her teacher San Fischer also serves as part of the faculty. Another misconception is that she doesn't use sheet music, which is only partly true: she learns her pop songs to be performed within minutes just by listening, but she is classically trained and of course she can, and does, read music sheets in her classical training. Her first street performance was at Venice Beach, not Santa Monica. The latter actually is her regular busking space.

Suggestions: Your article would be richer if you included Karolina's collab partners (besides Daniele Vitale) and TV appearances (besides Ellen and Access Hollywood), such as Barvina, Oscar Stembridge, Angelica Hale, Allie Sherlock, and, more recently, Ray Chen. In the part of her inspiration from Lindsey Stirling, you failed to mention that KP was invited to the Kelly Clarkson Show and the host, Kelly, prepared a surprise meeting with Stirling herself, Karolina having been presented with a signature violin and invited to play together with her mentor. Three weeks ago, Karolina had her soloist debut with the Los Angeles Orchestra Nova, performing Mendelssohn's Violin concerto in E minor. Lastly, you only mentioned 5 out of 10 Protsenko YouTube channels, the following also are owned by the family: Karolina Protsenko Piano, Ella Protsenko, Leo and K, The Protsenko Family Clips and Leo Protsenko, although only the last two are currently active. Her fans usually call Karolina "The Violin Angel."

I always try to help people interested in Karolina Protsenko, especially given the awful lot of fake info about her on the internet, so I'm happy to provide references if needed. Feel free to contact me on my email or visit my YouTube channel: Guillermo R.S.

Cheers!

Naveen Reddy

Hi, Guillermo, thanks a lot for your valuable comment! But in one of her November 2023 videos, she stated that she, along with her family, moved to California.

Reno

Friday 31st of March 2023

Hello Naveen, Thanks for a Short Biography of this Young Girl Violinist 🎻 Karolina. Even I have become a Great Fan of Her. Even I consider her a Young & Youth Motivator filled with Positive Vibes and Aura. I like her so much so Thank you.

You are welcome, Reno. Thanks for your appreciation!

Vaishali

Wednesday 8th of June 2022

You are welcome Vaishali.