Who Knew Russian Tangos Existed?

The first week back to school all the students in my vocal studio were required to go to the faculty piano recital of Kristie Born and another piano professor. These two professors are amazing performers and did an excellent job that evening. As I was on the edge of my seat listening to what they had to say about their pieces there was one piece Dr. Born spoke of where she said "and this next one I'm going to say in the English translation because I know I would butcher the Russian," this peaked my interest even more. The piece she was speaking of is called "Book of Marches and Dances in Memory of Valeriy Gavrillin"/"Тетрадь Маршей и Танцев Памяти Валерия Гавриаина" by Igor Yefimovich Rogalyov/Игорь Рогалев. The story she told to about the piece is that Valery Gavrillin/Валерий Гаврилин was thought to be one of the greatest Russian composers during the time of the USSR and he was awarded numerous prizes and was an honored artist of Russia. Later, during Igor Rogalyov's time tango was becoming very popular and many composers were trying it out, even Russian composers. Rogalyov wanted to honor Gavrillin and try out this tango thing so he wrote a piece for two pianos. Rogalyov composed one of the first Russian tangos. Below I left a link for anyone's listening pleasure:
(20 minutes in and you will find the Tango,
it's brilliant!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArVEKl9qsBw

Слот, an awesome Russian band!

   
     As I mentioned in my previous post on the blog, I love Russian music and my last post was about my favorite Russian singer and this time I will be writing about my favorite Russian band. My favorite Russian band is called SLOT or Слот and the first song that I ever heard from them that made me fall in love with them is the song "Одни" and from my sources the English translation is "Alone". It turns out that "Одни" was their first debut video on MTV Russia in 2003 and it stayed on for six months. Слот is a Russian alternative/nu metal band that was formed by their lead male vocalist Игорь "кэш" Лобанов and their guitarist Сергей "ID" Боголюбский in 2002 in Moscow, Russia. Слот's debut album entitled "SLOT 1" was released in 2003 under Misery of Sound recording label. Their debut album went on to sell over ten thousand copies internationally, and if  had known about them back when I was 8 years old I definitely would have made that number ten thousand and one. In 2004 the band's lead female vocalist Теона Дольникова left due to creative differences and went on to pursue a solo career. Luckily, Ульяна Елина (nicknamed "IF") winner of the 2005 RAMP Awards Best Vocal of the Year was able to step in for the years 2004 to 2006. As Ульяна still as their female vocalist in 2006, Слот along with the American band Korn performed at Saint Petersburg's Ice Palace and at MSA in Moscow. Also, the band has been featured on numerous soundtracks of Russian films such as Day Watch (which is a great film), Bumer, Hunting for Piranha and a few others. If anyone is interested Слот still has a Myspace and they also have a Facebook page that gives you similar information I am giving and a Youtube channel with all their music videos on it. Слот's second album was released the Autumn of 2006 and it was called "2 войны" or "2 Wars" and their hit single on this album had the same name; over eight thousand copies in the first twelve weeks of release were sold. Due to the great success on their second album Слот was nominated for the prestigious RAMP awards and they won the Hit of the Year award! In 2007, a new female vocalist named Дария "нуки" Ставрович replaced Ульяна and after the switch the band did a lot of touring with different bands, some Russian and some international. Fall of 2007, their third album was released and it was called "Тринити" or "Trinity" and their first single off of this album with a music video was entitled "Мёртвые Звёзды" or "Dead Stars". The next two albums were called "4ever" which was released in 2009 and "Break the Code" which was released in 2011; these two albums were their first albums released in English and all their music videos since "4ever" have had an English version and a Russian version. Слот is still going and the band's current members include Дария "нуки" Ставрович, Игорь "кэш" Лобанов, Сергей "ID" Боголюбский, Кирилл "Mr Dudu/The Dude" Качанов, and Никита "NiXoN" Симонов. Here are some links to my top two favorite songs by them for anyone's listening pleasure:

"Одни" - Слот  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtdWzonf058

"Лего" - Слот http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O1Gjx8s7Ag

My favorite Russian artist, Ю́лия Са́вичева!

     Since the 7th grade I have been highly obsessed with foreign music, especially Russian music and one of my favorite Russian artists of the 21st century is Ю́лия Са́вичева, in English she is known as  Julia or Yulia Savicheva. I loved her music so much that I myself even performed one of her songs entitled "Прости за любовь" which is translated to "Forgive me for loving you". Ю́лия was born in Kurgan, Russia on February 14 in 1987 which makes her 26 to date. Ю́лия's father was a piano player and the majority of the people who came to their home were music producers and Russian song writers. So at a very young age Ю́лия was exposed to music and her father even composed songs for her to sing as a child. At the age of only 4 years old Ю́лия had her first appearance on a stage as a dancer with the band Агата Кристи which was a Russian punk/synth rock band who was active up until 2010. For many years following that, her dancing got her many opportunities to perform in musical events in the recreation center at MAI. Later on, her creative potential led a producer to offer her a lead role in the New Year's performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and she did so well with that she was asked to come back the next year as the lead again. In 2003, Ю́лия participated in a T.V. show contest titled Star Factory which would be like our American Idol. Ю́лия was actually eliminated in the semifinals of this show but her songs went on to become hits in Russia, such as "Высоко", "Корабли", and "Прости за любовь"; Ю́лия came back to Star Factory a second time but this time around she was hosting the show. In 2004 Ю́лия participated in another contest known as Eurovision and came in 11th place with her song "Believe Me". She finally released an album in 2005 with the title Высоко. In August of 2005 she wrote another hit called "Если в сердце живёт любовь" which later became the theme for a T.V. series Don't Be Born Beautiful in Russia. In June 2006 she released another album called Magnit, it was very successful for Ю́лия. In 2007 she did some touring in Japan and performed in a musical entitled That Kind of Music. There is not much going on with Ю́лия lately except for basking in her fame and fortune and she is most likely doing some musical work somewhere but there is no public documentation of her recent activity. Attached below are two of her hit songs for everyone's listening pleasure: 

("Прости за любовь") http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRFS4eFf76c&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLCC01B417C6D63AF1

("Если в сердце живёт любовь") http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxGl7OtSPQo

Музыка

As someone who appreciates good things, it's always fun to stumble across some quality music. Here are some pages with relatively good recordings of very good Russian choral groups.

Yale Russian Chorus - http://www.yale.edu/yrc/recordings.html (Kind of short recordings and only 3 or 4)

Russian Chamber Chorus of New York - http://www.rccny.org/WatchandListen.html (Really high quality and they're videos.)

Golosa - http://www.golosa.org/music (This one probably has the most music on it. Also it's the name of our book so it's gotta be good!)

Hope you enjoy this!