Alexander Yurlov Capella Festival

The festival program of the Alexander Yurlov Capella, celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, features six concerts. Founded in 1900 by the talented choral conductor and choirmaster Ivan Ivanovich Yukhov as a family ensemble, it was widely known as one of Moscow's best choirs by the end of the first decade of the 20th century. Later, the ensemble not only successfully navigated the turmoil of revolutionary events and social upheavals but also played a huge role in the development of our country's entire musical art. The director of the renowned ensemble, People's Artist of Russia Gennady Dmitryak, shared: "Choirmaster Ivan Yukhov can rightly be called a unique personality. Coming from a peasant background, he organized a family church choir, which within a few years was performing with great success in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. The choir was highly appreciated by both audiences and famous musicians – Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Gretchaninov, Victor Kalinnikov, Serge Koussevitzky. While continuing to sing at services in churches in Moscow and the Moscow region, the Yukhov Choir performed the most complex cantata-oratorio works at concerts. Museum archives hold concert programs listing the ensemble as the performer of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Taneyev's cantata 'John of Damascus', choruses from Handel's oratorios and Wagner's operas. Astonishingly, the Yukhov Choir recorded over four hundred works of sacred music and Russian folk songs on gramophone records – it was contracted by the most famous recording companies," emphasized conductor Gennady Dmitryak.

After the 1917 revolution, the Yukhov Choir was nationalized and in 1919 transformed into the First State Choir. In 1942, the Republican Russian Choral Capella was created on its basis. The true flowering of the ensemble occurred during the years when the Capella was led by People's Artist of Russia, State Prize laureate, Professor Alexander Yurlov (from 1958 to 1973). The worldwide fame of the Republican Russian Academic Choral Capella is associated with the name of this great Russian choirmaster, an exceptionally original and uncompromising innovative artist. We owe to him the brilliant performance of choral classics, the rediscovery of the layer of Russian sacred music, as well as the triumphant premieres of works by 20th-century composers: Sergei Prokofiev's Cantata "For the 20th Anniversary of October", Dmitri Shostakovich's "The Execution of Stepan Razin" and Thirteenth Symphony, Vladimir Rubin's opera "A Sunday in July" and cantata "Blue Spring". The collaboration between conductor Alexander Yurlov and the modern classic composer Georgy Sviridov wrote a bright page. His choral masterpieces, such as "Poem in Memory of Sergei Yesenin", "Pathetic Oratorio" to verses by Vladimir Mayakovsky, "Five Choruses to Verses by Russian Poets", the cantata "Snow is Falling" to verses by Boris Pasternak, "Kursk Songs", "Spring Cantata" to verses by Nikolai Nekrasov, opened a new world in our musical cosmos. "Yurlov brought Russian choral music to the world stage in all its scope, gave it a truly global resonance," wrote Georgy Sviridov. "He greatly advanced all our choral performance art, raising it to a new level."

In the 2025 anniversary festival, the Alexander Yurlov Capella under the direction of Gennady Dmitryak gave two concerts in Shchyolkovo, Moscow region, the hometown of the ensemble's founder Ivan Ivanovich Yukhov. "For the Capella, performing in Shchyolkovo, where the ensemble's history began, is a significant, symbolic event," noted Gennady Dmitryak. "One of the concerts we gave in the beautiful Trinity Cathedral – the most beautiful church in Shchyolkovo. It was consecrated in 1916, and we have reason to believe that the Yukhov Choir sang there repeatedly. In the cathedral, the Capella performed sacred works by Yukhov's contemporaries Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pavel Chesnokov, Alexander Gretchaninov, with whom he was personally acquainted. As a tribute to Ivan Yukhov, we performed one of the sacred compositions he wrote," said People's Artist of Russia Gennady Dmitryak.

The Capella performed Mozart's masterpiece, the great Requiem, at the festival opening. Another featured piece was Alexander Gretchaninov's "Holy Week", which over its 100-year history had been performed only a few times and delighted the current audience.

"Music of Theatre and Cinema" was the title of another anniversary concert. It became a kind of reminiscence. In the 1930s, the Capella provided the sound for legendary Soviet films: "Circus", "Jolly Fellows", "Volga-Volga", "We from Kronstadt". Work on recording music for domestic films continued. Over the last ten years, the Capella has also provided the sound for over 50 films, and the concert featured soundtracks from famous Russian films – "Forgotten Melody for a Flute", "In Search of Captain Grant", "The Red Tent", "Admiral".

The two final concerts of the Alexander Yurlov Capella festival, dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the ensemble's founding, will take place on October 28 and November 26. The most outstanding works from the famous collective's extensive modern repertoire will be presented.