Kolotilova, Antonina Yakovlevna

Antonina Yakovlevna was born on April 4, 1890 in the village of Zhilino in the Plesovsky volost of the Nikolsky district of the Vologda province in the family of Yakov Ivanovich Sherskov and Irma Leopoldovna (Vargenau).

In 1909, she graduated with honors from the Veliky Ustyug Gymnasium.

In 1914, Antonina Yakovlevna married a notary V.V. Kolotilov and settled in Nikolsk. He works as a teacher in a public school.

In 1919, the Kolotilov couple moved to Veliky Ustyug. Here Antonina Yakovlevna organizes an amateur women's ensemble.

Since 1923, Kolotilova has been working as a full-time singer at the Veliky Ustyug broadcast radio station, but she does not stop her studies with the choir.

On March 8, 1926, a small amateur group created by Kolotilova performed publicly for the first time in the House of Educators, and this day becomes the birthday of the Northern Russian Folk Choir.

In 1931, Kolotilova, along with several ensemble singers, moved to Arkhangelsk.

1936–1937 marked by the participation of the team in all-Union radio festivals. Performances on air bring fame to the Northern Choir far beyond the borders of the Arkhangelsk region.

In 1938, the choir passed into the jurisdiction of the Northern State Philharmonic.

Since May 1940, systematic training sessions began to be held in the choir, and on December 28, 1940, the first performance of the Northern Russian Folk Choir in the status of a professional group took place in the Philharmonic Hall. The choirmaster, choreographer and vocal teacher were invited to the choir.

1949 - A. Ya. Kolotilova was awarded the Stalin Prize of the 2nd degree for the concert programs of the Northern Choir of 1948.

1960 - awarded the honorary title "People's Artist of the RSFSR".

July 6, 1962 Antonina Yakovlevna died. She was buried in Arkhangelsk. She was buried in Arkhangelsk at the Kuznechevsky cemetery .

Antonina Yakovlevna Kolotilova (Sherskova) was born in 1890 in the village of Zhilino, near the ancient city of Veliky Ustyug. She was born in the family of an employee Yakov Ivanovich Sherstkov. In the large Sherskov family (12 children), much attention was paid to music, and Antonina Yakovlevna from her early years showed extraordinary abilities in performing folk songs. I must say that in the development of song talent, my mother, Irma Leopoldovna, a German by nationality, helped a lot. It was she, herself a great lover of folk songs, the first to notice remarkable abilities in her daughter.

In 1909, Kolotilova graduated with honors from the Veliky Ustyug Gymnasium and went to teach in a village school in the village of Pelyaginets, Nikolsky Uyezd, Vologda Province. It was in this village that Antonina Kolotilova began to show her professional interest in folklore. She always watched with interest the northern rites, listened to songs, she herself learned to lament, dignify, learned the manner of movement of girls and women in round dance, quadrille, bow.

Kolotilova, born and raised in the North of Russia, deeply loved her native land, especially the expanse of flood meadows at the time of flowering grasses. She accurately shot from a gun, but she never killed a game, rode well and, having bought herself a horse, gladly looked after her.

In 1914, Antonina Yakovlevna got married and moved to Nikolsk. There she works as a teacher in a public school and continues to collect and record local songs, tales, and ditties. The innate artistic talent helped the young girl to easily master the culture and manner of performance.

After 5 years, the Kolotilovs moved to Veliky Ustyug. It is in this ancient Russian city that the history of the Northern Choir begins.

Here Antonina Yakovlevna organizes an amateur women's ensemble, which performs in clubs, and a little later, at a broadcast radio station that opened in the city. I must say that the first members of the team were mainly housewives. They easily came to her apartment, arranged collective singing, studied the songs they were interested in. The listeners welcomed the concerts of young chorus girls, and the radio performances made the group very popular. At that time, there were about 15 people in the amateur choir of Kolotilova.

Antonina Yakovlevna always dreamed of becoming a professional singer, but there was no possibility to study at the conservatory at that time. Therefore, Kolotilova very often travels to Moscow, Leningrad and Vologda, where she is engaged in vocals with professional teachers. Thanks to these lessons, Antonina Yakovlevna achieved particular success in vocal skills. This is confirmed by the fact that when artists of opera houses came to their hometown and staged scenes from the operas Ivan Susanin, The Queen of Spades, Mermaid, Carmen, Kolotilova, the main parts were assigned to them.

In 1922, in Moscow, at a recording studio, Antonina Yakovlevna met with Mitrofan Pyatnitsky. It was this meeting that became landmark for Kolotilova. Acquaintance with the work of the Pyatnitsky choir served as an impetus for the creation of their own folk choir of northern songs.

On March 8, 1926, the small amateur group Kolotilova first publicly spoke at the House of Educators. This day was the birthday of the Northern Russian Folk Choir.

The team then had only 12 singers. Costumes were the outfits of mothers and grandmothers - real peasant sundresses and blouses. The first harmonists were the brothers Tryapitsyna Boris and Dmitry, as well as the younger brother of Antonina Yakovlevna Valery Sherskov. Parties at rehearsals learned from the voice of the artistic director. Antonina Yakovlevna not only showed how to sing, but also how to move, bow and keep herself on stage.

The newly created choir was always warmly welcomed at the enterprises of the city, in educational institutions, in the surrounding villages. The status of an amateur group did not prevent Kolotilova from working seriously, taking care of the northern song and accurately reproducing the manner of its performance! She never changed these requirements in the future. In the early years, the choir sang mainly old folk songs that singers - former peasant women, indigenous inhabitants of the North - had known since childhood, possessed not only performing skills, but also a folk improvisational manner.

However, a simple series of songs in the concert no longer suited the choir director. Kolotilova plans to stage a northern wedding, writes a script, selects performers, patiently works with them. On April 19, 1928, the Veliky Ustyug club “Labor and Rest” performed for the first time the composition “Russian Village by Songs” - a musical mosaic in three paintings: “Separate (marriage),“ Wedding ”(seeing off the bride),“ From the mother-in-law to a new life ” ". The northern peasant wedding, with all its complex ritual, came to the audience from the stage, was received with interest by them, especially those who grew up in the village, observed this rite or participated in it.

Being the artistic director of the Northern Choir for 35 years, Antonina Yakovlevna took care of the proximity of the choir’s repertoire to the living, soil existence of the song in the village. It was not without reason that her choir was for many years considered the most ethnographically reliable, consistent in its creative line, preserving the traditions of the northern song, and the singers of the Northern choir were always distinguished by the ability to penetrate into the depth of the musical image and embody it in unique beauty.

In 1931, the radio station from Veliky Ustyug was transferred to Arkhangelsk, and Kolotilova, who was in the state of the station, moved there. Several great singers went with her. Antonina Yakovlevna immediately organizes the choir on a larger scale, both in terms of the number of participants and the volume of the repertoire. The concert programs include songs of Pinezhia, Northern Pomerania, dancing and everyday scenes are diverse. The richest musical material Kolotilova collects herself during trips to various regions of the Arkhangelsk region. At the same time, costumes were purchased for the choir members.

Along with Ustyug singers, the first members of the choir in Arkhangelsk were joined by performers from Kholmogor, Shenkursk, Leshukonya and Kargopol. The Serebryannikovs family from Pinezhia brought with them over three hundred songs, old round dances and the most ancient good-natured jokes.

The choir prepared especially carefully for the first performances on Arkhangelsk Radio: the future of the collective depended on them in many ways. On the day of the premiere, the participants excitedly performed four ancient lyric songs. Success exceeded all expectations. The performance of the amateur choir was a revelation to contemporaries. Similar groups appear in many areas of the Arkhangelsk region, and Kolotilova helps them by listening to the repertoire and advising leaders.

In 1935, traveling around Pomor, during her working vacation, Antonina Yakovlevna met with Marfa Semenovna Kryukova, a famous storyteller. Kolotilova made Kryukova participate in the first All-Union Radio Festival (1936). Subsequently, Martha Kryukova traveled with the Northern Choir to Moscow, where, together with Antonina Yakovlevna, she worked on the first tales.

On December 28, 1940, the first performance of the Northern Russian Folk Choir in the status of a professional group took place in the Philharmonic Hall. The choirmaster, choreographer and vocal teacher were invited to the choir. Together with these specialists, Antonina Yakovlevna took the first steps towards a professional concert interpretation of northern folklore.

In the spring of 1941, the Northern Choir successfully performed in Moscow at the P.I. Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. Returning home, the team began touring the Arkhangelsk region, in particular the water route along the Northern Dvina. On this path he was overtaken by the news of the beginning of the war. The terrible years became a time of great trials and, at the same time, a tremendous creative upsurge for the choir leader and all its participants.

The band has performed a lot. Moved in the huts, lived starving, lacked sleep, now and then escaped from bombing. We traveled to the Northern Fleet, to Murmansk, the Arctic, to the Karelian-Finnish Front, to the Urals. In 1944, they left for six months in the Far East.

In Murmansk, during a concert in the Officers House, a building riddled with shells, a bomb suddenly exploded nearby. Stucco rained down with noise, debris flying onto the stage. But the artists didn’t flinch, the mischievous song “How a mosquito would fly on a fly” flew into the hall. Antonina Yakovlevna Kolotilova has always been with singers on all concert trips.

Until 1960, Antonina Yakovlevna remained the artistic director of the team. Composer P.F. Koltsov and choirmaster V.A. Polikin, at her request, recorded the entire repertoire of the choir.

Antonina Yakovlevna found the first foreign triumphs of her brainchild. In 1959, the choir went on tour to Poland and Bulgaria, in 1961 to Czechoslovakia. In September-October 1961, the Northern Choir performed at the Ballet Festival, held in connection with the Soviet exhibition in Paris. The Songs of the World Society released a long-playing record with a choir recording. Parisians called the Arkhangelsk singers “a wonderful artistic ensemble, one of the most outstanding among those sent by the Great Country,” was the way the president of the Songs of the World, Jean Ruire, expressed his assessment of the choir’s performances in a letter to Antonina Yakovlevna.

Antonina Kolotilova, together with the narrators and songwriters, created 100 tales and songs. She is the author of the collection "Northern Russian Folk Songs"

July 6, 1962 Antonina Yakovlevna died. She was buried in Arkhangelsk. She was buried in Arkhangelsk at the Kuznechevsky cemetery .

• Stalin Prize of the second degree (1949) - for concert performance
• People's Artist of the RSFSR (1960)

• Kolotilova Antonina Yakovlevna (1890-1962)
• Website of the State Academic Northern Russian Folk Choir
• Source: Outstanding Vologda: Biographical Essays / Ed. Council "Vologda Encyclopedia". - Vologda: Voronezh State Pedagogical University, publishing house "Rus", 2005. - 568 p. - ISBN 5-87822-271-X