BERLIN, November 21. /TASS/. The Turetsky Choir plans to extend the Victory Songs project that had been launched earlier this year, and went on tour to several European capitals to celebrate the 73rd anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War (World War II), the choir’s art director, Mikhail Turetsky, told TASS.
"We want to bring the project to cities that are somehow connected to this Victory, (we want to) bring it to Prague, Bratislava, Belgrade, Vienna and Paris. We will possibly even go to New York," he specified, explaining that the music group is currently working on getting the go-aheads and agreements.
The team decided to visit more places after the Victory Songs had received a warm welcome in Berlin, where the Turetsky Choir performed on May 7 at one of the central squares. "This was an awesome project, and I am happy that we did it - a powerful, friendly musical story with songs of war, peace and heroic deeds treasured by many generations. And, of course, we want to cultivate this project," the crooner said.
Turetsky noted that the choir would adjust its program for performances in each city. It will include famous songs such as "Katyusha," "Dark night," "I was going from Berlin," "Brunette," "Buchenwald alarm bell," "Three tankmen," as well as songs for the local audience. "If we are talking about Belgrade, it would be a Yugoslav theme, with say something else for Vienna," he explained.
On May 9, 2018, the musical ensemble plans to put on a performance at Moscow’s Belorussky Railway Station. "My mother arrived at the Belorussky Railway Station in 1940. My father saved her from the clutches of death: her Jewish ‘shtetl’ had been wiped out. They lived near the Belorusskaya station, I was born there and I want to perform these Victory songs at the Belorussky Railway Station on May 9," Turetsky said. He reiterated that the Berlin concert was important to him as a tribute to his family memory. "I promised my father that I would take a trip to Berlin in May. He did not believe it - and he ended the war in Berlin and returned to Moscow on foot."
The Turetsky Choir plans to wrap up the tour with a May 12 concert in New York. "If the Victory Songs come to America, this will be incredible," the director said. Despite the complicated ties between Russia and the US, "creative relations" between the two countries have always been warm, he asserted. "We don’t feel any difficulties. Sometimes an artist can do more than a politician can in one or two hours. If he does it sincerely, even the audience will trust him more," Turetsky concluded.