|
|
V.MININ "FOREING TOURS"
Our first foreign tour was in Czechoslovakia. It was in 1974, we were still young and not so known choir. Our first foreign tour took place due to coincidence of circumstances.
In the period of my work in the Ministry for culture where I worked one year, one month and ten days, I established good relations with the deputy minister of culture Vladimir Popov who was responsible for many things including foreign tours. He was very educated and widely conceiving person who was able to take the responsibility.
I do not remember precisely how it had turned out, but, as far as I remember, the festival of choral art in the city of Iglava in Czechoslovakia sent to the Ministry for culture the request for one choir participation from the USSR. Popov offered this tour to us, and I, certainly, grasped this opportunity. In fact it was fantastic - only in 1972 our choir was organized, and in 1974 it went to foreign tour.
The audience reception rendered to us in Czechoslovakia was enthusiastic; at once we obtained a high recognition. I still remember the phrase from the local newspaper, the sense of which was as follows: we, Czechoslovakians, thought, that we are good in art of choral singing, but it appeared that in the Soviet Union there are choirs who could teach us.
Nowadays we travel freely all over the world. Performing Russian national music, we, first of all, feel like ambassadors of Russian choral art. Being abroad we include in the programs foreign classics too. In each country the attitude to performance of its national music is diffrent. Italian critics, for example, think that only Italians have the right to sing the Italian music. The Frenchmen, to the contrary, are pleased that we sing the French music. The audience abroad perceive , first of all, the emotional side of the performance.
The very special audience is in Japan. During the concert you do not know if they like your performance or not, but at the end of performance they applaud enthusiastically expressing their emotions. When you do not know this feature, you feel a little bit uncomfortably. Later it is easier. The Japanese really like Russian songs, they express very emotionally themselves after concert – they ask for autograph, for signing the disk, they want to shake hands ...
|
|
