I conduct Russian sacred music and am an occasional tenor soloist. I am the resident conductor of the Holy Trinity Monastery and Seminary Men’s Choir in Jordanville, NY. Previously, I conducted the St. John of San Francisco Men’s Chorale (see our recordings here) and the St. Cyrill and Methodius Youth Choir attached to the Holy Virgin Cathedral in San Francisco, CA.
As a soloist, I have performed in several Classical works, including Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Handel’s Messiah, J.S. Bach’s The Passion according to St. John, and Brahms’s Zigeunerlieder. I am also a featured soloist on Ensemble Cherubim’s recent recording of Bortniansky’s concertos (purchase here).
Here is an example of my solo work–a complete performance of the UC Berkeley University Chorus singing Igor Stravinsky’s “Svadebka” (Les Noces) in April 2013. There’s a story involved with this recording.
Only a few days before the performance of this piece, the featured tenor soloist found himself unable to manage the difficult Russian text of this crazy piece. Marika Kuzma, the wonderful conductor and my great friend, asked me to step it at the last moment. The problem was that I was now in New York, not Berkeley, and my wife was about to give birth. I thought she would never let me go.
But she did! First, however, she made me have a talk with our baby, to convince him that he should wait for me to get back before he decided to come out. I did, and as it turned out, little Adrian listened. He waited for the day after I returned from Berkeley to be born.