The young mens choir of the Perm Choir Chapel took first place at the 10th All-Russian contest Male Singing Brotherhood

Photo of the Perm Choir Chapel

This year, 23 groups from Russia and Belarus took part in the festival-competition in Izhevsk. The competition program of the Perm group included «Tram Waltz», the bylina «Alexander Nevsky» (traditional form of Russian heroic narrative poetry transmitted orally), the cantata «Rejoice to Russian Land» and other compositions.

According to the Department of Culture and Youth Policy of the Perm Administration, the Festival-Competition «Male Singing Brotherhood» has been held in Izhevsk since 1995 with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Udmurt Republic and the Republican House of Folk Art. The competition has long gone beyond the boundaries of its region - this year among the participants were groups not only from Russia (Yekaterinburg, Kirov, Togliatti, Naberezhnye Chelny), but also from Belarus (Brest). In total, 23 groups took part in the competition - that's more than 600 participants.

The city of Perm was represented by the youth choir of the Perm Choir Chapel (Director - D.A. Batin, choirmasters - V.Y. Racheev, A.V. Grikhankin, accompanist - V.V. Gritsai). At the opening of the competition the ensemble performed «Tram Waltz» - a part of the choral cycle for male choir by Dmitry Batin to the words of  «Songs about Perm» by Aleksey Arkhipov. The audience enthusiastically received the performance of the Permians, as this composition lists the names of tram stops in Perm in a light and humorous manner. The competition program also included works of patriotic content: a cantata by an unknown author «Rejoice in the Russian Land», Aleksey Grachevs bylina «Alexander Nevsky» and Mikael Tariverdievs «In Intelligence».

The performances of the groups were evaluated by a jury consisting of leading experts in the field of vocal and choral music: Aleksey Ilyich Gavdush (Chairman of the Jury) - Associate Professor of the Choral Conducting Department of the V.S. Popov Academy of Choral Art (Moscow), Morozov Dmitry Viktorovich - Associate Professor of the Department of Traditional Culture and Folk Instrumental Performance of the Volgograd State Institute of Art and Culture, Buzmakov Kirill Andreyevich - composer, arranger and conductor of the Perm Academic Theatre «Theatre-Theatre», Eliseev Andrey Alexandrovich - Artistic Director of the Academic Choir Chapel of the Udmurt Republic.

The closing ceremony of the competition took place on the stage of the State Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Udmurt Republic. It was here that the names of the laureates were announced. The first place winner was the choir of young men from Perm, and the head of the cappella - Batin Dmitry Anatolievich was named the best conductor of the competition. The grand finale was the performance of the songs "If the boys of the whole earth", "Farewell to the Slavs" and "My native country is wide" by the combined choir of all the contest participants.