MUSIC / CHRIS PASLES : Boys From Moscow, With Song

Conductor Ninel Kamburg and the Moscow Boys Choir had a surprise when they arrived in Valdez, Alaska, last week for a concert.

“It’s colder here than in Moscow!” Kamburg exclaimed in a recent phone interview. “There is no snow, thank God. At least, not yet.”

She was speaking through an interpreter during a break in the choir’s first U.S. tour, which includes a stop Friday at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. The tour ends Dec. 5 in New York; then, after a five-day break, the boys head to Belgium for more concerts.

If that kind of a schedule seems tough on them, they had a lot more to deal with during the recent battle of the Parliament in their native city. The youths study at a school about five minutes away from the Russian White House.

“We survived,” was Kamburg’s only comment.

The choir is drawn from the 400 boys, ages 5 to 17, who study at the Moscow Boys Cappella, a secondary school where city youths study general subjects as well as music.

“All the boys sing, so I always have a chance to select the best ones from an age group that I need,” Kamburg said, adding that there are several vocal groups. “But this is the main group, the one that goes on tour.”

When they are on tour (this one lasts two months), they are away from their families, but the kids prove to be troupers, despite a hectic schedule and the fact that the choir includes boys as young as 10. (One adult is brought in to provide the famous deep Russian bass sound.)

“This is their life,” Kamburg said, referring to the rigors outside of class.

Each year about 50 new boys are accepted at the school, but they have to pay their way because the school offers no scholarships. But the fees are kept minimal so as not to discourage any potential talent.

Still, keeping the fee low is more of a challenge these days because the government has withdrawn its support of the school as it has withdrawn most of its previous support to the arts.

“On the one hand, it’s easier because now you can get different sponsors,” the director said. “On the other, it’s difficult because you don’t get any allowance from the government. Many of the sponsors are graduates of the school.”

The goal of the education is not necessarily to turn out professional musicians, although some graduates do go on to get into music.

“The idea is just to widen (the boy’s) lifestyle, to learn to do something else in his life. Everyone chooses what he wants to learn.”

Girls interested in music have other options.

“There are many, many musical schools where the girls can go,” Kamburg said. “This one is a boys school. There are many, many girls choirs.”

Kamburg has been conducting the choir since 1966. The group, founded in 1957, gives about 40 concerts each year in Russia. Foreign tours have taken them to Switzerland, Poland, Belgium, Italy and Holland.

“Of course, there are always problems,” Kamburg said. “But they are disciplined. They are real professionals.”

The kids are also interested in rock ‘n’ roll, but not just any rock ‘n’ roll.

“These kids who have this real music education, they will tell what is good and what is not, to estimate correctly the good and the bad things,” Kamburg said.

The repertory on the Orange Coast program will include works by Mozart and Handel, as well as more popular recent pieces. New to most of the audience will be the religious music from the 18th and 19th centuries, “which is completely unknown and completely beautiful,” Kamburg said.

“Orthodox churches in Russia always have a choir, and many famous composers wrote compositions for these choirs, including Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky and many composers still unknown in the West.

“Russians themselves did not know much about many of those composers because for 70 years this kind of music was not welcomed in Russia,” she said.

It survived, she added, because music lovers kept the scores in private collections, libraries or archives.

“Some people who were really interested in collecting this music went to different parts of Russia, very distant towns, looking for old scores, music written by those composers.”

Also, the churches kept the scores. Although a “very few churches were permitted to have services, it wasn’t something approved of.” Even Kamburg seemed cautious about stressing the religious connection.

“When we talk of religious composition, the idea is that it has great aesthetic value,” she said. “It’s beautiful music.”

* Ninel Kamburg will lead the Moscow Boys Choir in music by Mozart and Handel as well as traditional and popular Russian repertory on Friday at 8 p.m. the Robert B. Moore Theatre at Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $10 to $16. (714) 432--5880.