January 30, 2022 | Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire
Jubilee Concert to the 75 Anniversary of Lev Kontorovich
Soloists: Anna Aglatova (soprano)
Polina Shamayeva (mezzo-soprano)
Alexei Tatarintsev (tenor)
Vasily Ladyuk (baritone)
Egor Bobrov (treble)
Trio of AGCh soloists:
Angelina Zelenskaya (soprano)
Evgenia Kourova (soprano)
Anna Nemzer (mezzo-soprano)
Academic Grand Choir “Masters of Choral Singing”
(Artistic Director and Principal Conductor – Lev Kontorovich)
National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia
Conductors – Lev Kontorovich, Vladimir Spivakov
Kontorovich. Works and arrangements for a cappella choir
Jenkins. Requiem for soloists, choir and orchestra
On January 30, 2022, Lev Kontorovich, outstanding chorus master, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, Professor of the Moscow Conservatoire, Artistic Director of the Academic Grand Choir Masters of Choral Singing will celebrate his 75th anniversary with a concert on the stage of the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory together with his collective.
For many years Lev Kontorovich and the Academic Grand Choir have been main artistic partners of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia. Together with the Masters of Choral Singing the orchestra have taken part in numerous subscription series in Moscow top halls, in memorial and jubilee concerts, in Vladimir Spivakov's Festivals in Moscow, Russian regions and Colmar (France), in the Christmas Festival of Sacred Music at the MIPAC, in a Holocaust remembrance concert in Jerusalem and many other dedicatory events.
The NPR and the Masters of Choral Singing have performed a great number of masterpieces of the choral symphonic repertoire, such as Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Mozart's Requiem, Krönungsmesse and Great Mass in C minor, Requiems by Karamanov, Saint-Saëns and Cherubini, Mendelssohn's Elijah Oratorio and Lobgesang Symphony, Rachmaninoff's The Bells Poem and Spring Cantata, Brahms's Schicksalslied and Nänie, Taneyev's John of Damascus Cantata, Shostakovich's The Execution of Stepan Razin Poem and many others. The Choir and the Orchestra have also taken part in a concert edition of Bizet's opera Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) and Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin which was also recorded on CD.
Lev Kontorovich has conceived the first part of the concert totally of his own choral works and arrangements, while the second part will feature Vladimir Spivakov conducting Karl Jenkins's Requiem which was first performed in Moscow on January 27, 2019, with the NPR on closing the 9th edition of the Christmas Festival of Sacred Music. In his Requiem Jenkins appended Japanese lyrical poems haiku to the canonical Latin text, added a Japanese shakuhachi flute and exotic instruments to the traditional orchestra formation and enlarged the number of soloists.
Lev Kontorovich was born in 1947 in Moscow. He graduated from the A.V. Sveshnikov Moscow State College in 1964 and then from the Moscow State Conservatory in 1969 (Klavdy Ptitsa's class of choral conducting, Lev Ginzburg's class of orchestral conducting and Alfred Schnittke's class of orchestration). Then he returned to the Sveshnikov College where he taught special courses and conducted the boys' choir. In 1992 he was appointed the Head of the Department of Choral Conducting at the Academy of Choral Art founded on the basis of the College.
Since 1996 he has been teaching at the Department of Choral Conducting in the Moscow Conservatory, since 2018 as the Head of the Department. In 2011-2017 - a teacher at the Department of Contemporary Choral Arts which he headed since 2012. In 1997 he founded the “Spiritual Revival” Chamber Choir at the A.G.Schnittke Musical Institute. Since 2005 – the Artistic Director of the Academic Grand Choir “Masters of Choral Singing”.