The Russia we love often performs in Paris a city we love.

The Red Army Choir (Choir Aleksandrov) is a performing ensemble that served as the official army choir of the former Soviet Union’s Red Army. The choir consists of a male choir, an orchestra, and a dance ensemble.

The songs they perform range from Russian folk tunes to Church hymns, operatic arias and popular music; examples include “Katyusha”, Kalinka, “Kernina” and “Ave Maria”. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Red Army Choir has continued performing, entertaining audiences both inside and outside Russia.

The Red Army Choir was formed out of Moscow’s Central Army Club in 1928. Under the name Red Army Song Ensemble, twelve soldier-performers - a vocal octet, a bayan player, 2 dancers, and a reciter - officially performed for the first time on October 12, 1928, at the Frunze Club under the direction of their conductor, Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov, a young music professor at the Moscow Conservatory.

The program, entitled The 22nd Krasnodar Division in Song, consisted mainly of short musical scenes of military life, including Songs of the First Cavalry Army, The Special Far-Eastern Army, and Song About Magnitostroi. In 1929, the ensemble visited the far eastern lands of the U.S.S.R., entertaining the troops working on the Far Eastern Railway.

With the goal of developing amateur art within the ranks of the army and to encourage soldiers’ interest in good music, the ensemble grew to 300 performers by 1933, comprised of three different forces of a male choir, an orchestra, and an ensemble of dancers

More recently the choir has performed in Paris. An experience most worthwhile!