On March 8, the legendary bard Sergei Nikitin will turn 80 years old

Sergei Nikitin is a legend of art song. His songs are known by heart – these are “Alexandra” from the film “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears”, and “A Huge Secret” from the cartoon “A Big Secret for a Small Company”, and songs from “The Irony of Fate”, and “To the Music of Vivaldi” from the film “Almost a funny story.” But it all started with a modest quartet of physicists from Moscow State University, where he met his Tatyana, who became not only his wife, but also his stage partner. By the way, both Sergei and Tatyana are candidates of physical and mathematical sciences. On the eve of his birthday, we called the famous bard, who is now in New York, and talked about creative life today.

– Sergey Yakovlevich, first of all, let me congratulate you on the upcoming year and wish you new creative success. And, secondly, I know that you are celebrating the anniversary with a series of concerts. What’s coming?

– One concert has already happened in one of the bookstores in Moscow. Young people under 30 performed there. They performed 60 of my songs. On March 9, the Moscow Center for Author’s Song will host a traditional evening called “Let’s Sing Together.” This is an old practice when someone starts singing on stage and the whole audience sings along. And on March 16, Nikitin’s songs will be sung by participants in the All-Russian children’s art song festival “Listen and Tell,” whose permanent director is Elena Reshetnyak. She has been doing it for 15 years. At first the festival was only in Moscow, but now throughout Russia. First, the guys are listened to online, and then they come to the capital. This time they will perform in one of the Moscow clubs – the concert will be dedicated to my anniversary.

– Will you be online somehow?

– For all the concerts, I recorded videos where I performed new songs, so that you could sing along with me. There will be new songs from the play, which is currently being prepared at the Comedians Theater in St. Petersburg. Production based on “The Captain’s Daughter” by Pushkin. The play and poems were written by Vadim Zhuk. I had great pleasure working on this material. There will be 15 musical numbers.

– When to Russia?

– In the summer I will return to Moscow, I have a lot of business and performances here – at the same Center for Author’s Song, the Central House of Writers, then I’m going to St. Petersburg, where there will be several chamber concerts. I will take part in the evening in memory of Grigory Ginzburg, which is held by his daughter Tatyana. 20 – a concert in Moscow, and 25 – in St. Petersburg. It’s very convenient for me, because the premiere of the play in St. Petersburg is on June 30th.

– Will there be any concerts in America? How wide is your audience there?

– Yes, there will be an anniversary concert in Manhattan on March 23. The organizers doubted whether to take the thousandth hall and took 450 seats. But it seems they regretted it, because the tickets were sold out on the same day.

– Do they sing along with you in the USA too?

– The Russians and their American relatives are coming. There are Americans who are interested in Russian culture. We always combine old well-known songs and new ones, people sing along to us. I’m happy that the evening is strictly academic. Dmitry Krymov, whom we admire, will participate, Bakhyt Kenzheev, Vladimir Gandelsman, Veronika Dolina. She will come specially.

– Will you perform with the whole family? Does your son continue to participate in creative life?

– Yes! My son will perform with us, which especially touches me. As they say, there is someone to leave the shop to.

– What do you think has happened to the original song over the decades that you have been on stage?

– It’s difficult to talk about this now, but five years ago about 600 art song festivals were held in Russia per year. When I found out this figure, I was very surprised. I think that strong interest in art songs is not in big cities, but on the periphery: there are many festivals in the Far East, Siberia, the Urals, and the Volga. The geography is vast. In the USA there are more than 10 festivals a year. An original song brings people together. The feeling of homeland passes through poetry, through the author’s song.

– How has the Internet changed the “weather” in the world of bards? Previously, it was a thing, one might say, at home: people gathered in apartments or somewhere in nature and sang. Now everyone can, sitting in their kitchen, write down everything they have written, and the world will know about it. If you’re lucky…

– You can draw an analogy with poetry. There are a lot of graphomaniacs and garbage on the Internet, so you need to know the places to look for a good song. But there are communities of professional writers. It’s the same in an original song. This is a way of self-expression that is accessible and many people do it. But, as in any other genre, there are graphomaniacs, and there are masters. Of the younger ones, I would remember Roman Lankin and Pavel Fakhrtdinov. For me there is no mass art song movement. There are artists – authors who are interesting, who excite. Among them is my old friend Yuri Kim, with whom we composed the play “The Lightest Boat in the World” based on the story by Yuri Koval. It has been running since 2018 at RAMT. It was just happiness.

– How will you spend March 8? Are there any birthday traditions?

– I try to celebrate all my birthdays with feats of labor. I plan to compose a new song and share it with my loved ones. We will arrange a family holiday, where my Tatyana, son Sasha and his family, grandchildren will be. And my scientific boss, Armen Sarvazyan, who was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences last year, will also be with us. And other scientific colleagues who are now in New York. There is a large scientific community of immigrants from Russia. Among them are our old friends with whom we are connected through scientific work in biophysics. I’m going to sing them my song based on the poems of Bulat Okudzhav:

Self-esteem is a mysterious tool:
it is created over centuries, but is lost in a moment
whether to an accordion, to a bombing, to beautiful chatter,
dried up, destroyed, crushed at the root.

Self-esteem is simply a portrait of love.
I love you, my comrades – pain and tenderness are in my blood.
No matter what the darkness and evil prophesies, there’s nothing but this
humanity did not come up with a way to save itself.