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Altos

Anastasia Shumanova

In the choir since 2018

Anastasia Shumanova graduated from the Shebalin Omsk Music College (class of Natalia Statkevich) and the Mussorgsky Ural State Conservatory (class of Vyacheslav Krasheninnikov) majoring in Choral Conducting. She has been the musicAeterna choir artist since 2018.

From 2006 to 2009 she worked as a choir artist at the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre (presently — Ural Opera Ballet). From 2009 to 2018 she performed in the Sverdlovsk Philharmonic choir conducted by Andrei Petrenko. As a soloist in the All-Night Vigil by Sergei Rachmaninoff she took part in the choir’s tours in Denmark and France. In the same period, she was a member of the Fleurs-De-Lys ensemble (directed by Vyacheslav Krasheninnikov).

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In 2017, with the performance of the first alto part in Coro by Luciano Berio, the singer began her collaboration with the musicAeterna choir and her participation in the European tours of the collective.

In 2018, she became a full-time member of the choir.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO MUSIC?
I did it on my own. It was not about immense talent or higher calling, though — still, I now think it was inevitable. I guess that is how fate works: our everyday decisions can change our life and give it a whole different direction.
IF NOT A MUSICIAN, WHAT COULD YOU HAVE BECOME?
I have thought over this a lot; I think I would have been either a photographer or a cook. Just like music, both those areas allow you to be creative and create something unique. And just like in music, the hardest part is to retain that spark of inspiration when it becomes your job.
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR GREATEST MUSICAL IMPRESSION?
This question has just made me realize that all my greatest musical impressions have been related to my direct involvement in the creative process. But there is a work that I find deeply touching as a spectator. I am talking about the “Jeanne au Bûcher” oratorio by Honegger, Castellucci and Currentzis: it is an embodiment of synergy among music, acting, and message.
WHAT DOES MUSICAETERNA MEAN TO YOU?
This might sound trite but to me, musicAeterna is a dream come true.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO PERFORM AS PART OF THIS TROUPE?
Bach’s Motets, Alexey Retinsky’s works, and something that has yet to be created…

musicAeterna choir events

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June 10, 21:00
St. Petersburg | Dom Radio
IM ÄTHER. Concert of choral music by Andreas Moustoukis
Choral concert

Andreas Moustoukis (b. 1971)
“Liturgy of St. Leontius” for mixed choir (2021)

Im Äther for mixed choir, 4 double basses, electronics, percussion and the ondes Martenot (2023, world premiere)

performers:
musicAeterna Choir and Orchestra Soloists

Conductor Vitaly Polonsky

MusicAeterna resident composer Andreas Moustoukis presents the result of his two-year work at Dom Radio. Together with the “Liturgy of St. Leontius”, fragments of which have been repeatedly heard in the concerts by the musicAeterna Choir, on June 6, the world premiere of his new composition – IM ÄTHER (“In Ether”) for mixed choir, 4 double basses, electronics, percussion and the ondes Martenot will take place. This is a micropolyphonic work based on the poems by Paul Celan interspersed with quotations from world cinema.

The author explains the essence of the new work as follows: “Im Äther (στον αιθέρα) is the need to breath out in the stratosphere were the gravitation is low and all the time is becoming one and a single moment of a crystal silence. The past, the present and the future stop to exist between then and now in a violent and compensating ‘why’, they just exist timelessly in the cosmic black as if they were small red shining dots of love, the tears of eternity.”

Photo: Selena Zhigulskaya