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Chumachoir on a dark stage in smoke and a beam of light

Academic choir · Moscow

There are thirty-five of us, and we have been singing together for fifteen years — sacred music, classics, folk songs and everything we love.

A choir is a *home* where all the neighbours *sing.* A choir is voices in the air, sorted onto shelves. Our choir is made of poets, writers, artists, photographers, accountants, editors and many other talented people.

Listen

This is how we sound

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    More recordings on SoundCloud and YouTube.

    Photos01 / 06
    A soloist in white raises her arms, the choir behind her repeats the gesture
    A girl in a white dress in smoke, singers behind her
    Singers with folded palms on stage
    Singers in black moving their hands in a beam of light
    Singers reaching towards red spotlights at the edge of the stage
    Singers laughing and dancing on stage

    Come and hear us live — we announce concerts on Telegram.

    About

    How we grew

    We sing a cappella: Russian folk and sacred songs, spirituals, contemporary arrangements.

    1. 2011

      We started as the student choir of the Moscow State University of Printing Arts, then of Moscow Polytech. Over time we grew into an independent ensemble.

    2. 2014

      Laureates of the World Choir Games in Riga.

    3. 2021

      First prize at the “Songs over the Neva” competition.

    4. 2023

      Started singing in the “Music in the Metro” project.

    5. 2024

      Audience award at the “Moscow A Cappella” festival.

    6. 2025

      Performed at the Voice Up A Cappella Festival in Istanbul.

    7. 2026

      4 June — premiere of the mystery performance “Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring Again” with the 442 orchestra: choir, orchestra and theatre in one live act.

    “Please, just not into the quote book!”

    • Well-rounded academic joy
    • Not enough whining!
    • YES! I TRIED, DAMN IT!!
    • No breathing! Sopranos may breathe only after verse four!
    • Put on your usual tenor face
    • Make a big face
    • We thought you hated us
    • I’ll be twitching at you, but don’t you twitch
    • I don’t know how you sing so beautifully without reading music!
    • Tenors are like babies
    • Just relax and listen to the chord
    • Altos are basses, only female
    • This is the Insomnia festival, right? I really hope your set is late at night and nobody hears you messing up!.. But well done, really.
    • In ten minutes I have to put my trousers on
    • Basses, well done, didn’t expect it from you! No shame sending you out into the woods.
    • Let’s sing sincerity, not looseness
    • On the contrary. Everything is perfect
    • Well it’s time to go
    • Sopranos, let’s go with the basses. Actually no, you’ll feel bad with the basses. Better with the tenors.
    • I sang the way I forgot
    • Someone keeps wanting to go to B… Human, come to your senses!
    • You are not in your childhood, you are going back there!!
    • Any note you have heard is a D!!
    • — We learned an interesting word today! — Which one? — I forgot…
    • You were such nice boys and girls, and then *WHOOSH* — look what happens
    • We could hear you well just now, but it’s not what we wanted to hear
    • Altos, you do this really well, I don’t know how you manage it
    • In this line you are men
    • The direction and the notes are right, you just don’t always hit them
    • Friends, mother is not drunk, mother is sober! Tenuto is not glissando and not portamento!
    • Maybe I just don’t know how to work with major…
    • Sopranos, I miss your body
    • It’s a kind of tip for a musician: paying them to stop singing
    • Here it is, grown-up life
    • And now we fit an A inside this I!
    • Her face just now looked like an eagle’s at the zoo
    • Can you squeal like a piglet?
    • One more time… without the horror
    • This is good and bad at the same time. We put it all together, but all wrong.
    • Boys, you’re not the problem — the rhythm is the problem
    • — You’ve got chain breathing there, do you know how you breathe? — Yep, we have a separate chat for breathing!
    • Life is bigger than a hairdo. Sometimes messy hair is a statement
    • If you’re not welcome somewhere in torn or odd socks, don’t go there in whole ones either
    • If the kids refuse a haircut, it doesn’t mean you’re not father of the year
    • The world around you doesn’t really care that you lost your “World Around Us” workbook
    • I’m sorry I can be like sandpaper, but I try not to be
    • Something keeps pulling us up to G
    • Please, just not into the quote book!
    • Basses are couch vocalists
    • You have to live through this interval, live through it!
    • Second sopranos are the raisins in our bun
    • From C up to E, take a cab, you’ll see. From A up to B, a taxi for me. From E up to G, walk barefoot and free
    • I’m watching how you’re filming me
    • You could tune a piano to you!
    • Basses, well done, but really awful
    • The harmony is fine — just not yours )
    • Icelandic is very close to Mordovian, and in Mordovia we pronounce it “kvi”
    • I don’t want to demonstrate it the way you sing
    • This is vocal infantilism
    • On “u” we sing from a barrel: “Hi, I’m Modest!”
    • A conductor is not a traffic inspector
    • Guys, stop. You’ve lost your short i!
    • Tenors must be loved… and basses must be praised
    • …and the sound is like from half a person. The lower half!
    • Don’t get carried away by your own voice — that’s narcissism!
    • God rested on the eighth day, not every day
    • Tenors are halfway between boys and girls
    • Gods, oops, I mean altos…

    Contacts

    We’d love to meet you

    Natalia Chumakova with a microphone in the audience during a rehearsal

    Artistic director

    Natalia Chumakova

    Choral conductor, mezzo-soprano, musical theatre actress (GITIS)

    chumachoir@mail.ru

    To invite the choir to a concert, a festival or your own project — write to us and we’ll talk it over.