The Gorky Chamber Choir Is 5 Years Old

IN THE GREAT HALL of the House of Culture of Trade Workers, a report concert of the chamber choir of the Gorky Choral Society was held, dedicated to the fifth anniversary of this gifted collective.

In such a short time the small collective under Honoured Art Worker of the RSFSR L. K. Sivukhin has managed to make a considerable contribution to the cultural life of Gorky and the region. The chamber choir has also won genuine recognition far beyond its native region. This refers to its tour appearances with serious concert programmes and its performance of new works by Soviet composers in competitions (for example in Ivanovo, and at the All-Union competition of patriotic song).

We in Gorky have no professional choir, and listeners’ need for one is enormous. The chamber choir has in effect taken on this mission and fulfils it brilliantly. In its first two years on Gorky television it helped to produce 12 programmes, the cycle “Choral Art”, and then, in philharmonic subscriptions, it performed more than 10 programmes (some together with the boys’ choir chapel) in which it introduced Gorky lovers of serious music to masterpieces of choral art from the Renaissance to the present day.

The role of this collective is great in promoting Soviet music and in the aesthetic education of young people. For its members the choir has become an artistic laboratory: more than 30 people who went through this school work successfully in other cities.

Thanks to enthusiasm, creative fervour and painstaking work, our chamber choir and its leader are adding to the good reputation of the people of Gorky as a musical authority. The time has come for the city of Gorky, too, to take care of this collective, which is undoubtedly worthy of attention.

V. Blinova, musicologist, Honoured Worker of Culture of the RSFSR.