Red Army Choir
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The Red Army Choir (Choir Aleksandrov) is a performing ensemble that served as the official army choir of the former Soviet Union's Red Army. In the late Soviet Union its full name was Дважды Краснознамённый ордена Красной Звезды академический ансамбль песни и пляски Советской армии имени А.В.Александрова, which may be sensibly translated as "the Academic Ensemble of Song and Dance of the Soviet Army, Bearer of Two Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of the Red Star named after Alexandrov".
The choir consists of a male choir, an orchestra, and a dance ensemble. The songs they perform range from Russian folk tunes to Church hymns, operatic arias and popular music; examples include Katyusha, Kalinka sample , Kernina and Ave Maria. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Red Army Choir has continued performing, entertaining audiences both inside and outside Russia.
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[edit] History
The Red Army Choir was formed out of Moscow's Central Army Club in 1928. Under the name Red Army Song Ensemble, twelve soldier-performers - a vocal octet, a bayan player, 2 dancers, and a reciter - officially performed for the first time on October 12, 1928, at the Frunze Club under the direction of their conductor, Alexander Alexandrov, a young music professor at the Moscow Conservatory. The program, entitled The 22nd Krasnodar Division in Song, consisted mainly of short musical scenes of military life, including Songs of the First Cavalry Army, The Special Far-Eastern Army, and Song About Magnitostroi. In 1929, the ensemble visited the far eastern lands of the U.S.S.R., entertaining the troops working on the Far Eastern Railway. With the goal of developing amateur art within the ranks of the army and to encourage soldiers' interest in good music, the ensemble grew to 300 performers by 1933, comprising three different forces of a male choir, an orchestra, and an ensemble of dancers. The Choir of the Red Army of the U.S.S.R became known as a propagator of Soviet songs, performing original compositions by composers such as Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi, Anatoli Novikov, Matvey Blanter, and Boris Mokrousov. In 1936, the choir was bestowed the Order of the Red Banner. Having traveled widely throughout the Soviet Union, from the Arctic north to the sands of Tajikistan, the choir performed at the International Exposition dedicated to Art and Technology in Modern Life held in 1937 in Paris, France; it won the Grand Prix, the highest honor bestowed by the jury. During World War II, the choir gave over 1500 performances at both soviet fronts, entertaining troops about to go into battle, at gun emplacements, airfields, and in hospitals.
After Alexandrov's death in 1946, Boris Alexandrov, his son, went on to succeed his father as musical director for the Choir. He led the Choir on worldwide tours, before finally retiring in 1987. He was succeeded by Igor Agafonnikov the same year, with Colonel Anatoly Maltsev as the ensemble chief. He retired his career as the principal conductor in 1994 and was succeeded by Victor Fedorov, the chorus master since 1986.
Today, the choir is led by Vyacheslav Korobko, who has been leading it since 2003.
Over the years, the Red Army Choir has collaborated with many popular artists and producers including David Foster, Jean-Jacques Goldman and Steve Barakatt.
[edit] Composition
[edit] Chorus
The choir, like other male choirs, consists of three vocal sections of tenor, baritone, and bass. In most of the pieces they perform, however, these sections are divided into even more sections, resulting in producing as many as eight different vocal lines.
[edit] Orchestra
The Orchestra, in what became a typical composition for later generations of military ensembles in the Soviet Union, has a mixed composition of Russian traditional instruments and western instruments, including the balalaika, the domra, the bayan, the double bass, woodwinds, brass, and percussion instruments.
[edit] Dancers
Among the dances staged by the Red Army ensemble are Zaparozhtsi Dance, Cossack's Cavalry Dance, Festive March, Dance of the Cossacks, Soldier's Dance, and Sailor's Dance. Some of these are performed by mixed dancers, while others, such as Cossack's Cavalry Dance, are performed by male dancers only.
[edit] International acclaim
In 1993 the Red Army Choir became an item of pop culture by performing together with the Finnish cult band Leningrad Cowboys both in Helsinki, where they performed on the Senate Square in front of 70,000 ecstatic listeners, and in Berlin. In the German capital the concert of the Leningrad Cowboys with the Red Army Choir took place on the central Lustgarten and gave the Red Army's farewell to East Berlin an optimistic overtone.
The Finnish concert was made into a rockumentary Total Balalaika Show by film director Aki Kaurismäki.
That year they have also made a CD and played a concert with french singer Jean-Jacques Goldman.
[edit] The Wall Concert
In 1991, The Red Army Choir participated in Roger Waters' The Wall concert celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. They performed an anti-war song, Bring the Boys Back Home.
