Once there lived two brothers in their private house in Dokhturov Street. Their names were Dmitry and Sergei Monakhov. The number of their house was 19-A.
Very often the house was full of friends and relatives. And everybody felt at home there. Usually the meetings took place without any particular cause, singing being just a very pleasant way to while away the time. But by and by rehearsals became more and more regular. And then the day came when the friends made them step on the scene.
The group went through several personnel changes, but inevitably the “family nucleus” remained the same – Ludmila (Dmitry’s wife), Dmitry and Sergei. And finally two more singers joined them – Olga Fedoseyenkova and Sergei Handrik.
“What enables Club 19-A to perform music of different epochs and genres (in English, German, French, Italian, Latin, Church Slavonic, Russian and Ukrainian) adequately and convincingly? Their fine voices… and perfect ensemble… "
I could have quoted pages and pages but should I? I’d rather suggest that you should listen to an English madrigal instead, performed by Club 19-A and the well-known ensemble Swingle Singers (they sang on tour in Moscow in March, 2007). The skilled ear will notice some differences between the recordings of the world stars and the five amateur singers, whose performance was filmed with an amateur camera in a live concert (the video clip is to be found on the ancient music page). Our recording, by the way, was made about ten years prior to the one of Swingle Singers.
Тhomas Morley, England, XVI cent.
April – Club 19-A
As a rule the singers are listed according to their voices – from high voices to deep ones. The singers of Club19-A are:
Soprano - Olga Fedoseyenkova. Up till today Olga has been perfecting her art of vocal singing. She has sung some main opera parties saying nothing about her great concert repertoire.
She is a singer of the philharmonia.
Alto - Ludmila Monakhova. In her youth years she sang jazz, even with bigband. Her voice... Sometimes my friends call me, "Heard your Lyudmila over the radio". It would turn out that they broadcast some classic jazz and there was a Afro-American singing… Ludmila sang for six years in a church choir. Then for some time she took interest in academic vocal art. But she hasn’t decided to become a professional singer in the long run.
Till now she works as a librarian in the department of arts.
Tenor - Sergei Khandrik. Music became his profession long ago. He is a soloist of the choir of the Cathedral of the Assumption. This year, as the choir singers put it, he “has sung his fifteenth Easter”.
It is interesting that communicating with angels in the sky does not prevent Sergei from experimenting with computers on the ground. He has already made quite a lot of fruitful experiments with sound and if he isn’t too lazy soon we’ll be glad to hear about his new project.
Bass - Sergei Monahov. He has been singing and playing the guitar since his school years, but never looked at music in a professional way. He is a dedicated teacher. In 1997 Sergei became a winner of the first All-Russia competition of teachers of English and American study. At the invitation of the Clintons he visited the White House (Washington, DC) where he talked with Hillary Clinton (in the photo she is on the right) and today sure he wishes the former first lady to become the first woman-president of the USA.
The leader of Club19-A – Dmitry Monakhov. If he sings he sings, fortunately, in a low voice, his main occupation being looking for new repertoire, arranging music, teaching the singers the right way of performing, playing the instruments needed for this or that piece of music, announcing at the concerts, constructing sites and so on. A voice from the hall, “However he has sung four Easters at the Cathedral of Assumption and Peter and Paul Church, hasn’t he?”
He works as the music director of the drama theatre.
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Club 19-A remembers, thanks and appreciates the time and attention of all those who sang and played different instruments in our vocal group in different periods of time:
Tatyana Timofeeva - vocal, piano Anatoly Orlov - vocal, guitar Valery Markov - vocal, guitar, flute Konstantin Maksimenkov - vocal
