Choir Festival

Choral art is that amazing source that awakens the best feelings, kindness, love and mutual understanding in each of us.

The 12th Moscow Sunday School Choir Festival was held at the Zaryadye Moscow Concert Hall. The music festival has been held for 12 years with the support of the Department of National Policy and Interregional Relations of the city of Moscow and every year attracts more and more attention of young performers and the public. The event was organized by the Foundation for Assistance to the Revival of the Synodal Choir with the support of the Church and Public Council under the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ for the development of Russian church singing.

Over the past decade, the festival has become a good tradition. Every year the number of participants and guests of the festival is growing, wishing to join the invaluable spiritual heritage, which is church hymns. At the festival site, very young performers perform together with recognized masters of choral singing, adopting the experience of performances and the quality of performing skills.

This year, the festival was attended by the best children’s choirs from all over Moscow, including the Orthodox Choir of the Moscow Military Music School named after V.M. In total, more than 350 young artists performed on stage. The young participants of the music forum performed accompanied by the famous VOCE ANIMA symphony orchestra, and one of the first professional choirs in the country, the Moscow Synodal Choir, conducted by Honored Artist of Russia Alexei Puzakov, became a special guest of the festival. “The purpose of the festival is spiritual enlightenment through music, development in the younger generation of ethical and moral principles that underlie the national musical culture. The participants of the gala concert presented an exciting program that included masterpieces of sacred and classical music. It is difficult to overestimate the role of this forum in the patriotic education of youth. The holding of the festival of Sunday school choirs this year has become a life-affirming event for all spectators and evidence of good hope,” said the artistic director of the festival, Honored Artist of Russia Alexei Puzakov.

In the hall, not only church chants from different centuries were heard, but also folk carols, as well as works of Soviet classics – well-known and unfamiliar, songs of fraternal Slavic peoples and other works of church and secular music.

The purpose of the Festival of Sunday School Choirs is the spiritual healing of the nation, the development in the younger generation of ethical and moral principles that underlie the national musical culture. The participants of the anniversary event presented a meaningful program, which included masterpieces of sacred and classical music, as well as works dedicated to the feat of the Russian people. The festival featured works by V. Kalinnikov, A. Ostrovsky, A. Pakhmutova, P. Chesnokov, A. Akhmetova, I. Cherkizova, S. Trubachev, Yu. Markelov, A. Kastalsky, V. Shkaburin, L. Knipper, L. Spevachek, F. Mendelssohn, I. Dunaevsky, S. Banevich, G. Sviridov, P. Tchaikovsky.

The best children’s groups masterfully performed even the most complex compositions. For the first time, within the framework of the Festival of Sunday School Choirs, the premiere of “Moscow” by composer Anton Viskov will be performed.

The program was very rich, the young artists and their mentors did not have a minute for an interview, but all the leaders of the Sunday school choirs and the parents of the speakers noted that in the matter of the Orthodox upbringing of a child, familiarizing the child with spiritual and moral values ​​is of great importance. In modern society, children’s knowledge of “their roots”, reliance on the cultural traditions of their country, are of particular value. This lays the foundation for the spiritual and moral health of the Russian people. The relevance of the training program for children’s choirs is due to the needs of modern society in the formation of a national worldview in the upbringing of a person. The specificity of this program lies in the parallel study of church works, world and domestic musical (secular) and spiritual culture, the formation of spiritual, moral and creative needs in children, through the in-depth development of Russian Orthodox musical culture, the upbringing of independence and responsibility, the development of creative abilities and artistic taste, fostering respect for the history and traditions of the musical culture of Russia.

All over the world they are now looking for ways to improve the spiritual culture of the younger generations, the revival of spiritual forces, this is also characteristic of today’s Russia. Recently, interest in sacred music has also increased greatly. She began to sound in concerts, on radio and television, many recordings were made on gramophone records. The revival of a colossal layer of Russian culture began, which had a ten-century period of development, starting from 988 – the adoption of Christianity in Rus’. Church music, as well as church painting and architecture, is the greatest artistic heritage of the Russian people. In the field of sacred music, there are many unique works, true masterpieces created by both famous composers and anonymous authors. Their works have become the property of high art, they express deep philosophical thoughts: about human life, suffering and patience, knowledge of joy, thoughts about life and death, about earthly and eternal life. Among these compositions there are those written for professional groups, intended both for church services and for concert performance. Spiritual music carries high morality: patriotism, love for the surrounding world, love and compassion for a person, the doctrine of kindness, a sense of beauty, peace and harmony, discipline of thoughts and feelings. The most favorable conditions for moving along this path of raising children exist today in Sunday schools, which more and more attract the attention of children and parents. Among the musically oriented disciplines, the Sunday school program includes: choral singing, the basics of music theory and solfeggio. The leading role, of course, is assigned to the singing activities of children, organized on the basis of Orthodox domestic traditions.

It is no coincidence that at the 10th anniversary International Christmas Educational Readings, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia said in his speech: and bright ideals of goodness, beauty, love for people and for the Fatherland, which leads to the formation of national identity, the upbringing of the Russian national spiritual character, the desire to build an educational process on national spiritual foundations.

Mikhail Kovalyov.

Author’s photo