Smolny Cathedral Chamber Choir (Choir)
The chamber choir of the Smolny Cathedral, created in 1991, consists of highly professional musicians. Many of them are graduates of the famous conservatoire of St. Petersburg. At the moment the choir is a participant of the bright musical life of St. Petersburg. The choir takes part in major music festivals and gives more than 60 concerts per season at the best concert stages of the city which are The Big Hall of Philharmonic Society, the Hall of the Academic choir, St. Isaac Cathedral, Smolny Cathedral. The annual tour of the choir is hosted by cities in Russia, Germany, Holland, Poland, Estonia and Korea. The choir’s repertoire is vast and various and includes Russian church music, folk songs, classic Russian and West European music and works of modern composers. Annually the choir also presents new concert programs which consist of works a capella as well as those cantata-oratorical genre. Thus in the season of 2006-07 Schuman’s and Shnitke’s Requiems performed rarely; “Stihy pokayannye” – a capella sacred music by A. Shnitke have had a great success. The chamber choir of the Smolny Cathedral is invited in all big musical projects in St. Petersburg such as Verdi “Requiem” conducted by G. Rozhdestvensky or “Polsky requiem” conducted by Penderecky. The present flowering of the choir is closely connected to the appearance of a new art director in 2004. Vladimir Begletsov, graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire (the piano, choir and opera-symphonic conducting department), prize-winner of international competitions, and a merited Russian performer deserves the right to be called one of the best young conductors of the country. A magnificent ensemble, with its purity of intonation, accurate choir technique, rich coloring of voices, enchanting dynamic palette put the chamber choir of the Smolny Cathedral in the first rank of leading Russian choirs.
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