St. Petersburg Chamber Choir (Choir)
The Saint-Petersburg Chamber Choir was created in February 1977 by Nikolai
Kornev, the professor of Saint-Petersburg Conservatory. The Choir is known and
loved not only in Russia but also far beyond its borders. The cleanness and the
freshness of its sound, the precision in reading of choral scores and in the
same time emotionality and incredible intonation could not leave the audience
indifferent. In 1979 the Choir successfully performed on the worldwide known
Festival «Leningrad Musical Spring». Since that time choir’s creative life,
filled of interesting events, always successful, had began. Its efficiency is
impressive: the Choir takes part in many concerts in Leningrad Philharmony and
Capella, participates in various musical festivals, records music for more than
ten theater performances and for twenty eight
movies.
Naturally the Choir achieved a worldwide
success. The Saint-Petersburg Chamber Choir is a laureate of the fore
international competitions and the holder of five prestigious rewards: Debrezen
(Hungary), Marktoberdorf (Germany), Arezzo (Italy). During the tour over Italy
the Choir was received by Pope Johann Paul II. The concert in Vatican lasted
more than one hour and extremely impressed the
audience.
It is hard to mention all the festivals the
Choir took part in and all the rewards and prizes. Nowadays the Choir is a
permanent participant of the Festival «Stars of White Nights» under the guidance
of Valery Guerguiev. In the same time, the Choir itself is the organizer of the
Saint-Petersburg international Festival of choral music. Eighteen choral
collectives from Russia, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, the USA
etc. participated in the Festival. During this years the Festival gained many
friends and admirers over the world. The Festival also exists in Germany and
Great Britain catalogues of the Europe main musical
festivals.
The repertoire of the Saint-Petersburg
Chamber Choir under the guidance of Nikolai Kornev includes more than 300
concert programs which embrace pieces from the Renaissance epoch up to our time.
Such pieces as Schubert’s «Stabat Mater», Percell’s «King Arthur»,
Gretchaninov’s «Eucumenic mass» were performed in Russia for the first time in
execution of the Saint-Petersburg Chamber Choir. Many modern composers write
especially for this collective and entrust to the Choir to present their pieces
for the first time to the audience.
One of the very
interesting and unexpected branches of the Choir’s activities is its capacity to
be an opera choir. For example, in Paris, in Chatelet there was a performance of
«Eugene Oneguin» with the Orchestre de Paris and with an international team of
soloists: D.Hvorostovsky, O.Borodina, I.Arkhipova, N.Chikoff, N. Fucille and
others. The Choir collaborated with many famous conductors: G.Rozhdestvensky,
V.Guerguiev, M.Pletnev, V.Aschkenazi, sir G.Sholty. The public, standing,
acclaimed the Choir in the Koln Philharmonic, Saint-Estache Cathedral,
Ottobeuren basilica and in many others famous cathedrals and concert halls of
the Europe.
In November 1996 the Choir had a very
successful tour over the USA due to one of the leading concert agencies -
«Columbia Artist Management International». The public was impressed by Choir’s
solo-concerts and with D.Hvorostovsky. The main American’s news papers published
a rapturous reviews about an amazing beauty and emotionality of Russian music
and about a big talent of its artists.
The
Saint-Petersburg Chamber Choir under the guidance of Nikolai Kornev makes many
records. Its collaboration with Philips Classic was especially lucky, there are
ten Choir’s CD made with this firm: «Eugene Oneguin», «Vespers», «Liturgy»,
«Russian Easter music», «Russian Christmas», «Credo» with D.Hvorostovsky.
Rahmaninov’s «Vespers» had a biggest success and the Choir obtained a «Grammy»
diploma in 1995 for this disc.
The Saint-Petersburg
Chamber Choir is twenty years old and it is a mature, successful musical
collective but its soul is still young, and the Choir is full of interesting
projects.
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