Michael Minsky

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Minsky (born August 12, 1918 in Bagajewo , Tatarstan , † October 9, 1988 in Zwolle , Holland ), actually Michail Grigorjewitsch Spirin , also in Ukrainian Mychailo Minskyj, was a Russian singer. He is considered one of the great interpreters of the Russian and Ukrainian song and was a soloist and brief conductor of the Don Cossack Choir Serge Jaroff .

Life

Minsky learned to play the bayan . In 1935 he went to Rabfak ( Workers' Faculty ) and then studied geology at the University of Kazan . In 1941 he became a member of the academic choir and was selected by Maria Vladimirovna Vladimirova to attend the Moscow Conservatory .

On June 22, 1941, Minsky was drafted into the army and received his training as a soldier in Saratov . After becoming a prisoner of war in World War II , he stayed in the Front Zone for 33 months. While he was working as a slave laborer on the Hungarian border , his superior was a singer of the Platoff Don Kosaken Choir , who told him about Serge Jaroff's Don Kosaken Choir .

From 1945 to 1948 Minsky was in various refugee camps. On November 3, 1945, an international Trembita choir was founded in Bad Hersfeld under the direction of Kyrylo Tsependa . This choir gave concerts in other camps, including 1946 in Ingolstadt and 1948 in Bad Kissingen . Then Minsky was moved to the Karlsfeld camp, where culture was strongly promoted. After the camp was closed, the refugees were divided between the Berchtesgaden and Mittenwald camps . In 1948 Minsky came into contact with the Ukrainian Bandura Chorus Taras Sjevchenko in Regensburg .

Together with the Banduristenchor, Minsky was invited to the United States , where he arrived on May 5, 1945 and was received at the White House that same year . He stayed in New York City and studied there on a scholarship. He was obliged to participate in various operas and operettas, including on October 2, 1949 in the Mansonic Auditorium. The first recordings were made in 1950. In 1953 he made his Carnegie Hall debut . In 1954 he worked in Aida in Philadelphia. However, he continued to perform as a soloist in the bandurist choir and worked with Gregory Kytasty. On February 21, 1953, Minsky received American citizenship and changed his name from Spirin to Minsky .

In 1958 he traveled with a group of members of the bandurist choir through Canada and the United States to prepare for a tour. On November 18th he sang on a European tour (England, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Holland) with the Banduristenchor in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam . At the time, his residence was Detroit . From its beginnings in 1948 to 1984 he returned to this choir time and again as a soloist. When he studied in Rome with another scholarship , he was in 1959 by Pope John XXIII. receive.

At the beginning of the 1960s he sang with the Black Sea Cossack Choir and appeared as a guest at the Rodina in Hamburg (1962–1964). When Rodina closed his doors at the end of March 1966, he then sang in the dacha until 1968 . Again with a scholarship, he studied in New Orleans and sang Papageno in the Magic Flute there . In early 1963 he sang in the La Scala opera company in Philadelphia . From. From September 1963 to the end of August 1964 he performed at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen . Minsky had been in contact since 1948, but it was not until the autumn of 1964 that he joined Serge Jaroff's Don Kosaken Choir in Lucerne , of which he was a member until spring 1979.

On April 22, 1966, Minsky gave another concert in the Mansonic Auditorium. In 1972 and 1984 he toured Australia and recorded a number of records with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra .

In 1978 he finally settled in Zwolle in the Netherlands and founded a mixed Slavic choir here in January 1980, which gave its first major concert in May 1980 and also appeared several times on television. After this success he was offered to conduct the The Hague amateur choir Ural Kosaken Choir from 1982 to 1984 . From 1984 to 1988 he was the musical director of the original Ural Kosaken Choir in Germany. He also made concert tours with the Volga Cossacks.

In 1984 he founded an amateur cossack choir in Rijswijk , but this choir did not meet his expectations. This was followed by an invitation from Otto Hofner, the impresario and friend of Serge Jaroff, to revive the original Don Kosaken Choir according to Serge Jaroff's request with Nicolai Gedda as a soloist. In 1986 he led the tour through Germany. Since Gedda no longer wanted to perform every evening due to his age and Minsky fell ill, it stayed with this tour.

Minsky took part in the organization of the Dutch celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the Christianization of Russia and the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church . This nationwide celebration took place on September 30, 1988 in the presence of Queen Beatrix in Zwolle.

literature

  • Michael Minsky: Koren, kerken en Kozakken: het bewogen leven van Michael Minsky. VU Uitgeverij, Amsterdam 1997, ISBN 90-5383-570-9 .
  • Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol III . University of Toronto Press, 1993.
  • Living strings - Ulas Samtjuk . Detroit 1976.
  • DVD Don Cossack Choir Serge Jaroff Brilliant Classics No. 8892, 2007.
  • Lysenko, Ivan. Dictionary of Ukrainian Singers . Kiev 1997.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Volodymyr Kubiĭovych and Danylo Husar Struk (arr.): Encyclopedia of Ukraine , Volume 5 (St-Z), University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1993, p. 303.
personal data
SURNAME Minsky, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Spirin, Mikhail Grigoryevich (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian singer and choir director
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Bagajewo , Tatarstan
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1988
Place of death Zwolle Holland