The distinguished Kuban Cossack Choir shall perform at NATO headquarters in Belgium for the first time. The concert is scheduled for the end of March, and it is part of a jubilee tour to mark the 70th birthday of its artistic director, the composer and folklorist Viktor Zakharchenko. The tour shall begin on 18 March in the capital of the Kuban region, Krasnodar. Later, the choir will give concerts in cities in the Ukraine and Byelorussia, and, finally, they shall perform in Brussels.
The history of the Kuban Cossack Choir can be traced back to 1811, making this one of the oldest folklore groups in Russia. Collector and researcher Viktor Zakharchenko has headed it for almost 35 years. The choir has a large and varied repertoire: church music, works by classical and contemporary composers, and, certainly, folk songs, not only Cossack songs, but, also songs of other Russian and Ukrainian regions. Maestro Zakharchenko said that they try to ensure that every programme they perform is unlike the previous one. The singers of the choir have such clear and beautiful voices that any composition they perform is raised to a higher plane.
The Kuban Cossack Choir is the second Russian choir to give a concert at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Last May, a performance of the renowned Alexandrov Russian Army Ensemble (the former Red Army Chorus) was a great success there.
22 February 2008
T. Zavyalova
T. Kaperkina
Voice of Russia World Service
http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=23233&cid=62&p=22.02.2008 (in Russian and English)
URL of the Kuban Cossack Choir website: http://www.kkx.ru
