Admirers of the Chamber Choir “Pokroff” speak different languages, but they all understand the language of music and appreciate art.
Art-director and conductor Andrey Goryachev
Chamber Choir “Pokroff” was founded as an amateur church chorus in 1993 by conductor and trumpeter Andrey Goryachev. The ensemble developed very fast and soon it became one of the best Moscow church choirs. First time the choir performed in the International Festival of orthodox music in Moscow in 1999.
Voices of young singers of the “Pokroff” choir won hearts of Russian and European audience. Since 2000 the choir has been making concert tours not only in its motherland, but also in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Estonia, Ukraine and Moldova. “Pokroff” is trying to create intercultural dialog. European press called the choir “singing ambassadors”.
The hospitality of the European colleagues inspired Andrey Goryachev to create a cultural exchange program which allows to show Russia to our musical partners and to demonstrate their art to Russian audience. So, Chamber Choir “Pokroff” has been inviting European choral groups to Russia since 2008. Besides visiting Moscow and Moscow Region’s sightseeings, choirs participate in the joint performances, organized by the “Pokroff” choir.
Concert tours and participation in many international projects of the European Broadcasting Union brought fame to “Pokroff”.
“Pokroff” choir is unique because its repertoire harmonically combines very deep and well thought-out interpreting of orthodox sacral music with absolutely new perusal of the secular choral literature, i.e. national songs, popular romances and well known songs of the Great Patriotic War. Also in “Pokroff’s” repertoire there are numerous songs of the different nations. On “Pokroff’s” concerts there is an unrepeatable atmosphere when songs come out of the musical face and create real images.
“Pokroff” unites talented and captivate young musicians with average age of 25 years. It makes believe that development and acknowledgment of the choir in both Russian and international space will continue.
Andrey Goryachev is a musician, who created “Pokroff” and who has been giving himself to the choir for 15 years. He was born in 1973 in Moscow. He graduated from trumpet class of proff. Y. A. Usov in the Moscow P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 1996. Being a student of the second year, he began to sing in the church choir, and later – in 1993, August he became the chanter of the amateur church chorus. When he graduated from the Conservatory, he didn’t continue his carrier of the trumpeter, but he decided to devote his life entirely to the church singing.
He was rewarded with the Patriarchal charter in 2002. As a compiler and an editor he issued some note’s collections of motets. He was leading radio programs on the orthodox radio “Radonej”. During several years Andrey was a producer of musical-historic radio programs in the radio company “Voice of Russia”. He is married and he has two children. When he is not busy with the choir, he is playing trumpet.
The official web-site of the Chamber Choir “Pokroff” in Russian: www.pokroff-choir.ru
Chamber Choir “Pokroff” on YouTube: www.youtube.com/PokroffChoir