The Chapel Is 55!

How pleasant is this feeling \nThat we are part of art. \nGoing along its path, \nWe so much want to grow! \nA. Kasyanov.

The Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) Boys’ Chapel is 55 years old. At the turn of the departed century and the new one, reflecting on this outstanding event is exceptionally important for the future.

The opening of the Chapel can, without exaggeration, be called the beginning of a new era in the musical culture of Nizhny Novgorod.

The Chapel is the brainchild of a collective of talented, highly professional and kind people. They understood the effect of music on a person’s spiritual and moral world and devoted their lives to children. Their names will remain for ever in the chronicle of the Chapel and of the Nizhny Novgorod region: the first director Vasily Pavlovich Malyshev; the choirmaster Mikhail Vasilyevich Kiselev; the choirmaster and solfège teacher Alexander Ivanovich Sytov; the piano teachers Alexandra Ivanovna Malysheva, Alisa Fyodorovna Malkina and Mirra Matveevna Sitskaya; the violinist Viktor Osipovich Ivanov; the cellist Viktor Ivanovich Zhbanov; the voice teachers Vera Stepanovna Agreneva-Slavyanskaya and Semyon Evdokimovich Rimsky; the music literature teachers Kaleria Iosifovna Stepantsevich and Liya Leonidovna Ukhobotova; and the tutors Pavel Aronovich Bekker, Yuri Mikhailovich Chernyshov, Nadezhda Gavrilovna Nazarova and Sofia Gavrilovna Poroshina.

The significance of their hard work is truly appreciated only now. However the later fate of the Chapel’s graduates turned out, they became bearers of high culture, of the spirit of enlightenment and of devotion to the chosen cause. Many linked their lives with music and reached great heights in this profession. They work in many corners of Russia and abroad.

The Chapel’s best graduates have been awarded honorary titles: People’s Artist of the Russian Federation — 3 people, Honoured Artist — 3 people, Honoured Art Worker — 6 people, Honoured Worker of Culture — 6 people, and 1 person has been awarded the title of State Prize laureate. Among the Chapel’s pupils are 9 professors, 4 associate professors, and 2 people hold the degree of Candidate of Art History.

The boys’ chapel, which received the status of the Nizhny Novgorod Choir School in 1993, constitutes the glory and pride of our city.

“The collective’s brilliant performances in different cities and countries and its worthy participation in international competitions and festivals allow us to say with full justification: the ringing voices of the young chapel boys carry throughout the world the news of our ancient Russian city, of its talented people, of their indestructible spiritual strength.” \n“Nizhegorodskaya Pravda”, 28 March 1996.

For almost half a century, since 1952, he has taught at the Chapel and for 40 years been its artistic director: People’s Artist of Russia, Professor, Honorary Citizen of Nizhny Novgorod Lev Konstantinovich Sivukhin, the acknowledged leader of Nizhny Novgorod choral culture. One of the Chapel’s first pupils and V. P. Malyshev’s favourite student, he continued and greatly developed the traditions of its founders.

The boys have been admired in Moscow and Kyiv, St Petersburg and Riga, Vilnius and Chișinău, Tallinn, Tartu, Ivanovo, Saratov, Novosibirsk, Kaluga, Tyumen, Minsk, Perm and other cities. As laureates of international competitions and festivals they have been applauded in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, France, Spain, Poland and Germany.

For our city the concert performances of the boys’ choir and the youth choir have long acquired the significance of a musical emblem. The voices of the “songbirds” are known on the stage of the Pushkin Nizhny Novgorod Opera and Ballet Theatre, they adorn all the city’s festivals, and for many years they made up the best programmes of Gorky Television Studio (including the cycle “The Voice of Epochs”). The Chapel and the choir school take part in the philharmonic’s choral subscriptions, the A. D. Sakharov International Arts Festivals and the annual “Christmas Days of Orthodox Culture”. The Chapel has performed before military personnel, work collectives, teachers and students. The choir school’s concert posters are a familiar part of the advertising stands in the city’s districts and the region. Enlightenment, as the meaning of all of L. K. Sivukhin’s and his pupils’ concert activity, worthily continues the traditions of their predecessors.

In the Chapel’s enormous repertoire there are several especially dear works. Among them is “Native Land” by Sveshnikov. Since those distant times when it was first heard, the programmes have grown considerably and become more complex, and every year five or six new ones are prepared.

The Chapel and the choir school have performed the most significant works of world choral literature: J. S. Bach’s “Magnificat” and “Mass in B minor”, Beethoven’s “Choral Fantasy”, Mozart’s “Requiem” and Verdi’s “Requiem”, Schubert’s “Mass in G major”, Schütz’s “Motet for Two Choirs”, Rachmaninoff’s “All-Night Vigil”, Tchaikovsky’s cantata “Moscow” and “Liturgy”, Kastalsky’s “Liturgy”, Grechaninov’s “Passion Week”, Bortnyansky’s Concertos Nos. 3, 15, 16 and 32, Vivaldi’s “Magnificat”, Haydn’s “The Seasons”, Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater”, Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols” and “Missa Brevis”, Kabalevsky’s cantata “Song of the Morning, Spring and Peace” and “Requiem”, choruses by S. I. Taneyev, A. Schnittke and many others. And also arrangements of folk songs and choral miniatures by Western European and Russian composers. Many hours and years of work, inspiration and the joy of success!

Once, at V. P. Malyshev’s request, the Gorky composers A. Kasyanov and A. Nesterov wrote their first choruses for children. A landmark work for the boys’ chapel was A. Nesterov’s eight-part unaccompanied cantata to words by M. Marash, “Boys and the Sun”. The collaboration with Nizhny Novgorod composers continues and develops. B. Blagovidov, G. Komrakov, B. Getselev, E. Fertelmeister and S. Strazov considered and still consider the Chapel their creative laboratory. The composer Lev Sivukhin took shape in creating music for his native collective.

The Boys’ Chapel was created as a special children’s music boarding school. The boys studied at house No. 16 on Gruzinskaya Street, and nearby, at house No. 29 on Sverdlova Street, they lived: they rested, did their homework and played football in the yard, the favourite game of the Chapel’s pupils of all generations. They spent the summers at the dacha in “Zeleny Gorod”. Since 1991 the city has given the Chapel house No. 4 on Minin and Pozharsky Square, with a beautiful concert hall where choral concerts are held, not only the school’s. Regional children’s choral festivals, concerts and competitions are organised here, and the municipal chamber choir “Nizhny Novgorod” and well-known adult and children’s choirs from the city, the country and the world perform. A sufficient number of classrooms makes it possible to combine musical and general education subjects at the choir school. Many hours a week are also given to the main subject, the choir; classes in all the other music subjects (solfège, music literature, instrument) still require serious effort. In time, teaching in guitar, accordion, woodwind and brass classes was added to piano and violin. Pupils with aptitude can also receive additional composition lessons.

Modern technical teaching aids are gradually being introduced. The school is equipped with computers and video cameras, and the sound and video libraries are growing. Equipment has been installed in the concert hall that makes it possible to make high-quality recordings and to duplicate concert performances. To the two well-known records of past years audio recordings and compact discs have been added.

The pupils of the Chapel and the school spend their childhood and youth in their own home. Here are study and rest (tennis, billiards, video games, football). Within these walls they come to know musical art, the world and people. That is why the responsibility of the teachers and tutors is truly enormous!

As in the Chapel’s first years, a collective of teachers infinitely devoted to music and to children works at the school now, among them graduates of the Chapel. The artistic director’s “associates” are: Boris Vasilyevich Mokeev, choirmaster of the concert choir; Evgeny Evgenyevich Makarov, choirmaster of the youth choir and head of studies; and Nikolai Ivanovich Balykov, for many years accompanist of the concert choir. High-level professionals are the experienced teachers: Nadezhda Nikolaevna Lobkovskaya, choirmaster of the choir of grades 1 and 2; piano teachers Dmitry Viktorovich Karnaukhov (head of the piano section), Natalia Mikhailovna Vorobyova, Lyudmila Alexandrovna Sidoruk, Lidia Grigorievna Khoryushina, Tatiana Ivanovna Panteleeva, Larisa Vasilyevna Murygina and Olga Anatolyevna Shalashova; teachers of music-theory subjects Elena Borisovna Bodryashkina (head of the theory section), Lyudmila Evgenyevna Filatova and Larisa Vasilyevna Vorontsova.

The Boys’ Chapel opened in the difficult post-war years for the country. Together with it, the Chapel has travelled the road to the new millennium, having survived all political and economic upheavals, and has stood firm thanks to the musical art it serves to this day, thanks to the talent and faith in the better of the people who created the Chapel and work in it, and thanks to the support of the city and the people of Nizhny. Whatever problems it may have to solve in the future, the main thing has been done: the foundation has been laid and the first floors of a beautiful building have been raised, which will certainly continue to be built. We are confident of this!

Foreign tours of recent years: \n1995: France (Paris, Saint-Denis). \n1998: Spain (Madrid, Toledo). \n1998: Latvia (Riga, Daugavpils). \n1999: Belarus (Minsk).

In recent days the Boys’ Chapel of the Nizhny Novgorod Choir School under People’s Artist of Russia Lev Sivukhin has received an invitation to represent Russian culture at the 4th International Festival “Riga Cathedral”, dedicated to the 800th anniversary of the city of Riga.

The best boys’ choirs from Germany, Latvia, the USA, Finland and France will take part in the festival. The high level of the festival is underlined by the fact that it is held under the patronage of the President of Latvia, Dr. Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, and all concerts are held in the presence of the ambassadors of the participating countries.

By the rules, boys’ choirs may perform at only one festival. The Nizhny Novgorod Chapel, recognised as one of the ten best boys’ choirs in the world, has been invited to this major international musical event for the second time.

The Chapel is a second home. After all, the boys spend the greater part of the day in it. It is very important when the family, the school and the pupil are united by one aim, so that the person gains as much knowledge as possible and chooses the right road in life. The Chapel does a great deal for this. Innovative teachers and energetic people work here: T. N. Vyakhireva, A. N. Tsaregorodtseva, M. A. Zueva, N. V. Novotorova, A. S. Sinyak and G. I. Zyuzina.

Let it not always go smoothly, let problems and conflicts arise. But it cannot be otherwise: the Chapel has nothing but boys! The main thing is that no one is indifferent.

Remarkable tutors work at the Chapel: G. V. Kantova, L. P. Kamysheva, V. D. Smirnova and L. F. Sukovatova. It is of them that one says a teacher is a creator of the human soul.

“I myself went through the boys’ school, for which I am grateful to fate. I wish you, dear boys, success, joy, hard work and plenty of patience on the difficult musical path.” \nUSSR People’s Artist, Professor R. K. Shchedrin.