Just advertisingThis CD gives the listener a unique opportunity not only to get acquainted with the dark, in the Andalusian style, an early work of Alexander Gradsky much to hear how all sounded the first rock band from Moscow, besides the obvious inspiration from the aesthetics of the high baroque. No concessions to the market, such as: limitter, compressor, or shuffle through the channels - there is only the advance of musical sensitivity listener, the nuances of dynamics and contrasts of sonorities able to assess the composer and the performance level of both the author and his colleagues in the group «Skomorochi»... Read more - Songs on the music and arrangement. So, it all started with the «Skomorokhov» in 1966, where you played with Gradsky, Buynova and Shakhnazarov. What began themselves «Skomorokhs»? and the music!



Galina Simanskaya

On the materials: "NIS-REVIEW"

Svetlana Kukina

April 2002
Galina Simanskaya - Alexander Gradsky

It's hard to call a musical event, which she would not tell about on TV. It's hard to imagine the name of a musician she does not know. Twenty-five years Galina Simanskaya is making musical programs on Gorky / Nizhny Novgorod television.

Graduated from the conservatory (musicologist).

Since 1977 - on television. Author and presenter of television cycles about music "The musical life of the Gorky people", "Dialogues about the orchestra", "Gorky musicians-performers", "Play, the accordion", "My little boy is sitting on the porch", "The musical colors of Nizhny" and many others. Winner of the Nizhny Novgorod Prize.

The organizer of folklore festivals "Nizhny Novgorod Razgulay" (1990-1995).

Married. A son.


- Do you agree that your professional life is a tusovka, only "cut into pieces" and distributed in time and space?

- Of course. In general, tusovka as such existed from time immemorial. Artists in Montmartre, Alexander Pushkin in the cafe on Nevsky - they all hang out. We at jazz festivals and rock concerts - hang out. We attended conservatory students at prestigious symphony concerts - the same. True, the word "tusovka" does not always sound correct. Perhaps, the previous hangouts are different from the current ones primarily because they were on a professional basis. In this sense, my professional life is a tusovka. I went to all festivals, exhibitions, went with companies to metropolitan cities for prestigious performances and concerts, went on hikes, sang songs with a guitar by the fire. But if we talk only about television - there is such a definition that it is a "fire in a madhouse". Mental tusovka.

- Live on television - always abnormal situations. Remember the example from your experience.

- Here is the story of many years ago. Alexander Voroshilo came to us, already very famous thanks to - remember the parties - to government concerts, in which he always took part. Record the transmission. He must first sing Roberto's aria from "Iolanthe": "Who can match my Matilda?" Then follows my phrase: "Hello, dear friends, we have a guest of the Bolshoi Theater soloist ...". What happened to me - I do not know, but at first I could not utter the word "Alexander", then "opera", and he sang this all his "Who can ...". I stumble, the recording stops. Finally, he turns to me and says: "Well, can anyone compare with my Matilda?" And looks through the eyes of the murderer. Apparently, with fright, I said the required design. Then we even made friends, and he took out tickets for me to the Bolshoi Theater, who came to Moscow. Another tragicomic incident almost cost me my life. We recorded the ensemble of Dmitry Pokrovsky. Dima was a controversial person - explosive, sharp to rudeness, and with an absolutely childish soul, could burst into tears, caress. But just what was not on it - became an animal. We started recording several times, for various reasons. I lift my eyes - the bench on which they were sitting is flying at me. It flew literally in the centimeter from my head ... Then, of course, he was very complex, he asked for forgiveness for a long time.

- You got on television as a student. By blat, by vocation, by coincidence?

- All together. My friend, zalyavat opera theater Galya Pokrovskaya, learned that you need a music editor, and invited me to try. I already worked in a music school, I wrote a diploma on Zhurbin's rock opera Orpheus and Eurydice, I was going to study further or teach ... Television was for me a dark forest. And the vocation, probably, was - the desire for communication. I really enjoyed traveling, watching, listening. My friends and I could go to Leningrad to a performance of the French theater, and thence - unexpectedly - to the Panevezhis Theater, without knowing a word in Lithuanian. And it was only at the ticket office that we realized that we would not understand a word in the play! Although already in those days in the theater there was a simultaneous translation, headphones on each chair. What moved us? Excitement, thirst for unusual impressions. So what are we talking about?

- About vocational vocation.

- A call is to see, hear, meet. Communication, emotional impressions. I admit that I always wanted people interesting. And acquaintance with people significant, famous, of course, flattered.

- With whom of the celebrities did you have the luck to talk?

- A lot of acquaintances - for a quarter of a century on television. I talked a lot with Andrei Eshpai, I even rested next to him in Georgia (he has a dacha there). Less - with Shchedrin. A special touching memory is Saulius Sondeckis, an amazing person of a huge internal culture. It is very difficult to be friends with them - only you will feel a spiritual kinship, but life and divorce.

- Do you keep statistics - how many programs, how many stories?

- I did not even collect autographs, with rare exceptions (Plisetskaya, Asaf Messerer, Kozlovsky). There are a lot of programs. I have long-life cycles. "Music paints of the Lower" - the seventh year. "Sits little on the porch" was six years. Early cycles - "Dialogues about the orchestra" - three or four years.

- How do you do it? It is believed that the telecast is getting old within six months.

- Long life of the gears - thanks to the topic, not me. It's just that we were lucky that we live in a city where there is symphonic music, a musical theater, a stage, jazz, underground. The shape is hard to choose, yes, you have to strain to not stamp the same gears, as on the conveyor. But I really love music. This is my happiness, my profession, my love, everything in my life.

- But the acuteness of impressions is erased. Today music can hit you - with a gigantic listening experience?

- "Styx" Kancheli at the last Sakharov festival. Sergey Larin. Conductor Gergiev in the Mariinsky Theater. And in May I was at the Cossack song festival in Volgograd. The guys from the ensemble "Stanitsa" in parting, I asked to sing my favorite song "Anyone, brothers, whatever." They went to the bank of the Volga - a man a hundred, as they grappled around as they sang - I do not know how I did not have a heart attack. It's like a wave rolling and gathering more and more water - a great musical element. But I'm generally impressionable and I like to be impressed.

- Impressing on the record, do not forget about the work?

- It happens, but less often than when I just come to listen. When the guys from the orchestra, greeting, ask: "And where is your film crew?" As if I can not come at all as a normal honest spectator.

- You worked at the time of censorship and prohibitions. Was it disturbing?

- I do not remember that on our television it was directly forbidden to show this or that musician. That's when there was a Gorbachev anti-alcohol campaign, we received a paper banning on the air mention of wine, glasses and other things. And even the famous aria from "Triviat" with the words "Pour, pour glasses full" could not be broadcast.

- I remember, in connection with television in the seventies musicians hid long hair under the collar.

- The hair was not hidden to anyone, but to Gradsky. There was a festival called "Silver Strings", and Gradsky was his star, an idol, who made a lot of noise, including long hair and wide flares. Before the final concert, which was to be broadcast, organizers of the festival were strictly told: "Cut your hair, and change your trousers." Therefore literally on the knees of Gradsky they persuaded me to change my trousers, which some of the Komsomol members lost to him during the performance, and my hair disguised.

- At various gatherings you often amaze with some feathers, fur edges in clothes. Do you like to dress up?

- I love, of course, but for me it's more important than rules how you can never dress. A combination of colors, stylistic harmony, length of heels and skirts. I have been taught them since childhood by my mother and teacher of music.

- It's interesting, music teachers apparently replaced the institution of governesses. My teacher once drove me out, fourth-graders, with a lesson for stockings that went down on their knees in assembly. For the rest of my life I remembered the words: "A woman should not allow such a thing!"

- But at that time music teachers were a privileged caste. In addition, there is one teacher in the classroom for thirty people. And the music school is a small temple, where the child is alone with the teacher. Another level of attention.

I always liked to dress, even in times of total deficit, when I was rescued only by "Birch" with her checks, which could be bought from speculators. I remember one day I got a blouse there. And my dad, when she found out how much she had managed, said: "Maybe it was better to buy a winter coat?" However, most of all I like good cosmetics and French perfumes. My fragrances are with oriental note, "Fiji", "Sikkim".

Once in the car I left very good gloves. Experienced, of course. A few days later brings these gloves to the assistant: "Yours?" It turns out that the drivers found them and began to determine by smell: whose. One says: "Of course, to Simanskaya, do you not recognize the smell?"

- Do you like to dance?

- Oh, that's not the word. I love rock'n'roll, although now I probably will not be able to tumble; I love Seven Forty. This is a dance with great dignity, where the main thing is to keep your head and back, to look noble. And another waltz - we always danced it with dad.

- I know you like to cook.

- Yes, very, and I like it when I eat a lot. I have friends in Essen. Their six-year-old son knew only two words in Russian: "Galina" and "borsch". This shy child ate a borscht at a family dinner, and then cabbage rolls, and again borsch, and again cabbage rolls-I thought he would get sick. Another friend from Israel made a very big compliment to me. I met him stuffed with pike (I was taught by my friend's grandmother, of course, a Jew), and he said that he did not eat such pike even in Israel.

- Choose yourself, please, the main vital role: a privileged caste, a dray horse, a lady ...

- Of course, a dray horse. What questions? Who in the old days worked on television - all dray horses, even the most beautiful and prosperous television hostesses. Television is a sweet work.

- And to reign? Put your hands for a kiss, be in the spotlight? What are you compensating for?

- Of course, when people thank for the transfer. Politicians, I must say, do not kiss their hands and even rarely say "thank you." Artists - it is necessary. But more important than kissing is the very understanding that the transmission turned out, and the light was good, and not very tired, and the person is grateful. In general, I even fear when they greet me on the street and in a tram.

- From the reality of a "dray horse", what can you say about the love of life?

- With the years this love decreases, especially if we look at our life. But life in general makes sense to love. Wealth is not a quantity of bank notes, but a collection of pleasant sensations. And the main rule is to be happy with what you have now. Then you are happy.