167 choirs and vocalists to perform at Moscow Spring A Capella festival
.jpg)
Some 1,300 vocalists will sing at venues across the city during the Moscow Spring A Capella festival. The head of the Moscow Department of Trade and Services Alexei Nemeryuk said that, while being the first contest, it evoked great interest in both Russia and abroad.
“Over three weeks, between 9-31 March, we received almost 250 applications,” Alexei Nemeryuk said, speaking about the selection round. “Some 167 were approved. The contest will have competitors from Russia, the UK, Spain, Italy, the US, Hungary, France, Poland, Singapore, Georgia, Latvia and Ukraine.”
Twenty vocal bands from 11 foreign countries were selected for the contest while the largest number of participants will be from Russia .There will be 143 choirs and solo performers from 43 cities, towns and villages. Almost half of the participants are from Moscow. There will be 15 performers from St Petersburg, 4 from Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk each, 3 from Belgorod and Nizhny Novgorod each. Other contestants will represent the Voronezh, Moscow and Ryazan regions, Astrakhan, Blagoveshchensk, Volgograd, Kazan, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Petrozavodsk, Simferopol and other cities.
The Moscow Spring A Capella festival will run between 28 April and 9 May at 31 venues in the city, including rooftops and balconies of some buildings in the centre. During the contest each Capella will sing different kinds of songs, including pop, rock, jazz, blues, gospel, folk, Russian and foreign hits of the 20th century, and classical works too.
Most of the contestants are small choirs of up to five singers. However, during the contest the audience will also listen to several choirs of up to 30 people. For example, a choir of Moscow teachers, a choir of the Sretensky Monastery (Moscow), a chamber choir of the Belgorod Philharmonic and a chamber choir of the Astrakhan State Philharmonic.
The selected contestants will be competing in three categories, small, medium-sized and large vocal groups. The money prizes will be donated by sponsors. A grand prix will be awarded to the choir that receives the largest number of votes from the audience and a professional jury headed by songwriter Viktor Drobysh.
The Moscow Spring A Capella festival is part of the Moscow Seasons street entertainment programme that offers street theatre, creative workshops and open-air sports competitions.