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Andrey Nemzer

In the choir since 2018

Andrey Nemzer is a countertenor who has been a soloist of the musicAeterna choir since 2018. He graduated from the Sveshnikov Choral College, the Popov Academy of Choral Art (Moscow), and a graduate programme of Duquesne University (USA). He is the winner of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition (2012) and Placido Domingo’s Operalia Competition (2014; III Prize).

He was the lead singer of the Mendelssohn in Pittsburgh, a soloist of the Metropolitan Opera, the San Antonio Opera (USA), the Royal Theatre in Victoria (Canada), took part in the Opera Festival in Pittsburgh, the Salzburg Festival, and many others. He has performed with various vocal and instrumental ensembles including The Pocket Symphony conducted by Nazar Kozhukhar, the Intrada vocal ensemble conducted by Ekaterina Antonenko, Questa Musica ensemble conducted by Philipp Chizhevsky, the Berlin Philharmonic, and maestro Vladimir Yurovsky.

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He performs as a soloist in numerous musical and theatrical projects.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO THE WORLD OF MUSIC?
My mother was the reason. When I was 4, she made me take piano lessons. At the age of 6, I entered Sveshnikov Choir College. Three years later, I performed on the stage of the Moscow Conservatory for the first time. We sang “The All-Night Vigil” by Georgiy Dmitriev. That was how my music life started.
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR MOST MEMORABLE PERFORMANCE SO FAR?
Perhaps the most unusual place I have ever performed at is a plane pilot’s cockpit. I was going home from a tour together with the male choir of the Choir Art Academy. It was a charter flight and the pilots invited us into the cockpit. We sang a few songs for them. I loved it — it was a great experience!
HOW DO YOU CHANGE WHEN YOU GO UP ON STAGE?
When on stage, you have a peculiar feeling: not anxiety but rather a kind of ardor. You have to prove your command of your voice, and you need to make sure the audience gets whatever message your music carries. This ardor in anticipation of the concert is something very special. And of course, the satisfaction you feel after the performance when the audience applauds and cheers — it is something worth living for.
DO YOU HAVE A DREAM?
I do. I want to arrange some sort of a jazz concert. Jazz is my secret passion. I love Ella Fitzgerald, Laura Fygi, Mike Patton. I would like to try my hand at something like that. I also have an idea of giving some opera arias a jazz treatment — but I am super busy, so there has been no chance yet.
HOW DO YOU RECOVER AFTER LARGE PROJECTS?
Quite frankly, I want to do nothing at all and just to stay at home. After performances, I go to the dressing room, avoid any interaction with others and just try to relax. I really do not like post-concert parties, so I rarely attend them. After the concert, you are exhausted both mentally and physically. You have given away a ton of energy which takes time to replenish.
WHAT DOES MUSICAETERNA MEAN TO YOU?
It means love towards music and towards each other. Love on a molecular level. MusicAeterna is not just a troupe where every performer might have their own vision of music; instead, it is one single entity.

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