Born on October 10, 1947, Nina Matviienko grew up as the fifth of eleven children in a large peasant family in Ukraine. Her upbringing was a shared effort between her parents, Mytrofan Ustymovych and Antonina Ilkivna Matviienko, and her siblings.

One of her teachers, Lyudmyla Ivanivna, encouraged Nina to pursue singing professionally and try out for the Ukrainian National Choir, named after Hryhoriy Veryovka. Although Nina visited the choir’s vocal studio, her path took a different turn after finishing school, when she joined the Korosten Chemical Machinery Plant, working as a record keeper, crane operator apprentice, and later as a draftswoman.

When she heard that a female vocal ensemble was forming in Zhytomyr, she went to audition. The Zhytomyr Philharmonic indeed planned to create a women’s vocal group, but Nina’s authentic singing style did not align with the ensemble’s pop ensemble singing. She was rejected, though another future Ukrainian singer, Raisa Kyrychenko, was accepted. Nina’s passion for singing, however, remained strong. In 1966, she enrolled in the choir studio of the Veryovka Choir and by 1968, after completing her training, she became its soloist and remained a soloist of the Ukrainian State Folk Choir until 1991.

Her repertoire included numerous Ukrainian folk songs, which Matviienko performed in Mexico, Canada, the United States, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland, Korea, France, and Latin America, bringing Ukrainian culture to worldwide audiences.