Organ Concert Series of Sacred Music

The parish organ concert series of sacred music is the most successful concert series ever to be organized in Vladivostok, a city with an estimated population of 800,000 (2003). The concert series began in 1996 with two concerts but now presents more than sixteen concerts each year, with the demand for concert tickets still growing. For example, when the series started in 1996, we had one performance of the Christmas concert, which was open to the public free of charge and at which a capacity crowd of 200 people was present. For the 2003 Christmas season, we put on four performances of the annual Christmas concert, which was attended by over 1000 people. The tickets sold out in only 18 days!

First Organ Concert in Vladivostok's History

Although Vladivostok was founded in 1862, it took over 100 years for the first organ to arrive in the city. The first organ concert of sacred music was performed in our historic cathedral on November 24, 1996, on the solemn feast of Christ the King. The occasion was a day of thanksgiving for the return of our historic marble crucifix. (See "Historic Crucifix Returns to Church" and "First Organ Concert: a Spiritual and Musical Triumph" [Vladivostok Sunrise, 1 Dec. 1996, no. 16]. NOTE: All articles cross-referenced in this web page have been scanned as JPEG images and may take some time to load.)

First organ concert in history of Vladivostok, Feast of Christ the King, November 24, 1996, in honor of return of historic marble crucifix to church (in front of choir loft). Fr. Daniel is standing below at left, and Fr. Myron is seated in front of him.

At all organ concerts, church seats are turned around to face choir loft, which is used as stage. This is made possible because seats are on padded felt skids and because choir loft is only 6 feet higher than second-floor nave, added in 1930-35 by the Communist government.

Notice that picture was taken before hand-carved choir railing was put in place and before new window frames and stained glass windows were installed.

The Yearly Concert Program

The Organ Concert Series presents four to six different concert programs of organ and sacred music each school year:

The Need to Limit Concert Attendance

The first several concerts were open to the public free of charge. But the concerts soon became so popular and so many people came expecting admittance that the building could not hold them all. For the last free concert, performed for Christmas 1997, almost 400 people showed up, but there was seating for only 200 of them. The others had to sit on the floor or lean against the walls or radiators. Because most Russians have never been inside a church, many people do not know "church manners.” Some wanted to sit on the main altar in the sanctuary! We decided that the only way to solve the problem was to charge admission and to sell tickets with assigned seating. Still, demand for tickets continues to grow so much that each year we have had to increase the number of performances of each of the four concert programs.

A Variety of Instrumental and Vocal Music

Although the concerts have always been billed as organ concerts, from the planning stages of the first concert in late 1996, it was decided that the concerts would be more appealing to a wider audience if they included a variety of musical instruments and vocalists. The organ is a wonderful instrument, the king of instruments, but more than thirty minutes of only organ music can be difficult to listen to, especially on a medium-size electronic organ that does not have many specialized solo stops. The concert organizers always invite a number of vocal and instrumental soloists and vocal and instrumental chamber ensembles from the city and the wider area to participate in all our concerts.

Only Sacred and Organ Music Performed

The strict rule has always been that if the organ is the solo instrument for a piece of music, it can be any piece written for organ, preferably but not exclusively a piece of sacred music. But if the organ is not used, or is used as a secondary instrument, then the piece must be sacred music. It cannot be just any piece of secular operatic or orchestral classical music.

Occasionally this rule has caused hard feelings among the most celebrated members of the Vladivostok performing arts community. The popularity of the concert series and the excellent acoustics of our church (considered the best of any large hall in the city) lead virtually all classical music vocalists and performers of any instrument to want to perform at our concerts. Many of them come to us to propose that we allow them to give solo concerts here. We always tell them that we are not just another concert hall. We are a church, and the only reason we have concerts is because we have the only organ in the state, which is larger than Wisconsin. Our concerts must be of only organ and sacred music.

Introducing Those Raised as Atheists to a Repertoire of Sacred Music

During the long years of Communism in Russia (1917-91), all sacred music was banned from professional performing arts academies and institutions. Even today the repertoires of Soviet-trained musicians consist almost completely of secular music from the classical, romantic, and modern periods, because that is what the concert-going public has become used to. Because Vladivostok musicians do not perform sacred music in any other venue, they are reluctant to spend sufficient practice time on the sacred music in order to play it well enough for a concert in our church. Therefore, we have felt that we cannot invite most of these musicians to be part of our concerts, especially since we have started to charge for admission. We have a responsibility to our concert-goers to offer them the highest quality performances of sacred and organ music.

Choral Music for Very Special Occasions

From the early beginnings in 1996, it seemed natural to invite choirs to perform for the Christmas and Easter concerts, our two most celebrative feasts. There is something about a good-size choir that adds to the special feeling of a live, holiday organ concert. One year, before we started charging admission, our nonprofessional parish choir presented as part of the program a repertoire of Christmas carols in seven different languages—Russian, Latin, French, Spanish, English, German, and Polish. But when we had to begin charging admission, it was not realistic to think that the volunteer members of the parish choir, who were not trained as singers or musicians, could learn new Christmas and Easter music well enough each year to present completely new programs for each concert.

We began to look for professional or academic choirs whom we could invite to make guest appearances. One year we invited the Chamber Choir of the Vladivostok Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. Next we invited the large choir of the Far Eastern State Institute of Arts, and then a small professional choir of ten women and five men. The best choir to make a guest appearance was the choir of the Vladivostok Music School, a choir consisting of forty teenage girls. But because the Russian music world was completely controlled by Communist ideology for so long, academic and professional choirs had virtually no experience singing sacred songs and oratorios. After a number of disappointing performances, Fr. Daniel thought about starting a professional Catholic concert choir to perform a repertoire of only sacred music.

The Catholic Concert Choir of Vladivostok

Finally, in the year 2000, primarily because the then director of our volunteer parish liturgical choir, Svetlana Naumova, was such a talented choir director, a lifelong student in the technically excellent Russian government music school system, and a student in the master’s program of choral directing at the Far Eastern Arts Institute, Fr. Daniel asked her if she would be willing to become the founding director of the new Vladivostok Catholic Concert Choir. Not knowing what she was getting into, she agreed. On a trip to the United States in the summer of 2001, Fr. Daniel got some advice and purchased a number of Christmas oratorios and carols suitable for a medium-size mixed choir of SATB (soprano-alto-tenor-bass). The choir of twenty-five members, most of whom were voice and choral directing students at the Arts Institute, started meeting for orientation and rehearsals in late September 2001. Their first concert program was for the four Christmas concerts in late December 2001 and early January 2002. Since then they have sung at each successive Christmas and Easter concert, receiving very favorable reviews from the concert-going public, the local media, and our parishioners.

First Concert CD

Even though they had been formed as a brand-new choir just a few months earlier, their four concert performances were a great success, each received with resounding applause and demands for encores from the audience. Two of the performances were professionally recorded, and from them our first professional CD, called The Joy of Christmas in Russia, was made. It is available for a donation in the Gift Shop section of this website.

Since then the Vladivostok Catholic Concert Choir has also performed entirely new programs for the Easter 2002, Christmas 2002, and Easter 2003 concerts. All of these concerts have been professionally recorded, and a new CD of their collected performances is in the planning stages.

Regina Angelorum, the Catholic Concert Chamber Orchestra

Concert organist Marina Omelchenko had long wanted to gather a group of fine musicians of stringed instruments to work with her on a regular basis as concert performers of sacred music. The right time came with the return to Vladivostok of our parishioner Diana Nam. She became a Catholic while a student of violin performance and music theory at the famed Moscow Conservatory of Music. When she graduated from there in the spring of 2001, she chose to return home to Vladivostok to pursue a musical career. She and Marina would often play organ and violin together during the post-Communion meditation period at Sunday Mass. Hearing how well she played, Marina took the opportunity to ask Diana, a concert performer of uncommon skill and artistry, if she would be willing to start a four-member string ensemble to play regularly at our concerts. Diana agreed, and the chamber orchestra, Regina Angelorum, was formed. At first it consisted of a first violinist (Diana), a second violinist, a violist, and a cellist. In the second year, they regularly invited a flutist and an oboist, and once a trumpeter, to play with them. Occasionally they also have the help of a third violinist.

Artists of 2002 Easter concerts with Fr. Daniel, standing in front of "Mary Mother of the Church" stained glass window in south transept of church. Standing on either side of Fr. Daniel: Veronica Kasyanova (in red), soprano, winner of many international opera competitions (most recently at La Scala in Milan), main soprano with Khabarovsk Philharmonic Orchestra (500 miles north of Vladivostok), and frequent guest performer at our concerts; Oksana Korniyevskaya (in black), mezzo-soprano, who was with Vladivostok Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladivostok Opera Company until she received permanent position in Moscow classical music world in late 2002. All others pictured are instrumentalist members of parish's "Regina Angelorum" chamber orchestra. L to R: Mikhail Shuyanov, flute; Elena Smirnikh, violin; Marina Omelchenko, organ; Olesia Slobodyan, violin; Ekaterina Shleisser, cello; Diana Nam, founding director and first violin; Elena Pavlova, oboe; and Mikhail Rikovanov, viola and professional concert recording technician.

The orchestra has had to weather the loss of their founder. Throughout the year 2002 Diana discerned a call to become a cloistered Carmelite nun in the newly founded monastery in Novosibirsk, 4000 miles away from Vladivostok, where American Sr. Theresa Mary Barron, O.C.D., is founder and superior. Diana left for Novosibirsk immediately after the Christmas 2002 concerts and became a Carmelite postulant in February 2003. We are proud that our parish has produced the first Russian Carmelite postulant, but nevertheless we sincerely miss Diana and the beautiful music she played at Mass and at our sacred music concerts. The orchestra performed all four Easter 2003 concerts without Diana's presence, but knowing that Diana was praying for them in the monastery so far away was a great source of strength and inspiration. The Regina Angelorum chamber orchestra performs on our first Christmas CD. Other Regina Angelorum concert selections have been recorded and will be included in future CDs.

With the recent acquisition by the parish of a new Rodgers digital electronic organ—a gift from a group of benefactors in the United States and due to arrive in Vladivostok some time in the fall of 2003—we look forward to great progress in our organ-choral-orchestral concert program.

Resting in the Lord

It is difficult to explain the unparalleled success of our sacred music concerts in Vladivostok, which is a quintessentially Soviet, atheistic city. Whereas concerts of the Vladivostok Symphony Orchestra and of other classical music performers are often less than half or even a quarter full, our sacred music organ concerts are always filled to capacity, even as we multiply their performances. Many people return again and again for each new concert program. Others tell us that it is very difficult to obtain tickets. People would not return so often just out of curiosity. Many factors combine to keep attracting old and new concert-goers: the beauty and the newness (for Russians) of the masterpieces of sacred music; the power and dignity of the organ, king of instruments; the talent, professionalism, and discipline of our musicians and artists; the accompanying narration of the religious theme of the concert that introduces each musical selection; and the perfect acoustics of our neo-Gothic church, along with its sacredness and the beauty of its stained glass, marble crucifix, icons, statues, and stations of the cross. Perhaps it also has something to do with St. Augustine's famous prayer, "O Lord, you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are ever restless until they rest in You."

St. Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430), typically pictured holding heart, reminding people of his most famous prayer, "O Lord, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." (Confessions, book 1, chapter 1)