Russia-Oak Park link continues

Lyra, the famed choral group from Russia, will present a concert of both religious and secular Russian music at Mount Zion United Methodist Church at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30.

Lyra is a community of more than two dozen musicians, most of whom are students or graduates of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which offers the highest level of musical training in Russia. The musical program is a mix of songs and hymns from the Russian Orthodox tradition as well as folk songs and secular music from Russia’s most accomplished composers.

Six members of Lyra will be on tour throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, coming from Maryland to Oak Park at Mount Zion UMC on Sept. 30 and completing this year’s tour back in Maryland the first week of October. Sergey Tupitsin, spokesman for the Lyra, has said that the group’s name Lyra comes from the Greek musical instrument, the lyre, which in Russia is the symbol for music as well as another word for inspiration. Mount Zion UMC invites the community to come and hear these inspired Ruusians sharing their musical gifts.

The group includes, Olga Karandasova, soprano, a graduate of St. Petersburg Conservatory who is presently is a principal soloist of the Red Army ensemble; Anna Makarenko, soprano, a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with large experience in singing in opera; Irina Zykova, a mezzo-soprano, with two majors —  in vocal and in sound engineering — who works as a sound engineer in a TV studio; Oleg Trofimov, a principal soloist of the famous Capella of St. Petersburg state choir; Sergey Tupitsyn, a baritone, a graduate of St. Petersburg Conservatory as choir conductor in 1994 who also had postgraduate studies at the St. Petersburg High School of Economy and was a singer of the “Konevets” male choral quartet; and Miroslav Alexeev, a bass, one of the eldest members of Lyra, he has a very deep voice and often sings as a special guest soloist in many of the choirs of St. Petersburg.

For information, call (540) 672-5233.