Liana Turetskaya: biography, age, personal life, famous husband and photo. Turetsky, Mikhail Borisovich Mikhail Turetsky in childhood

2015 - Honored Artist of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic (November 19, 2015) - for many years of creative activity, achievements in the field of culture and high performing skills
2017 - Laureate of the 2016 Russian Government Prize in the field of culture
2017 - Order of Friendship - For services to the development of national culture and many years of fruitful activity

05/03/2018 The International Marathon “Songs of Victory” has started

04/12/2018 Today, April 12, we accept birthday congratulations

05/24/2017 State Awards Ceremony

Mikhail Turetsky was born on April 12, 1962 in Moscow. The boy was born into a family of immigrants from Belarus. We lived modestly, in a fourteen-meter room in a communal apartment at the Belorusskaya metro station. My father worked as a foreman in a silk-screen printing workshop at a factory near Moscow, and my mother worked as a nanny in a kindergarten.

Misha's musical abilities manifested themselves in early childhood. Already at the age of three, he repeated many songs coming from the radio and television, clearly chanting all the words, without even understanding their meaning. The little musician’s first concert platform was the chair on which he sang the then popular song “Lilac Fog.”

After some time, Mikhail himself asked his parents to send him to a music school. The financially constrained family could afford only the most inexpensive education. In the state school price list, the cost of training on various instruments varied in the range from one and a half to twenty rubles. So Mikhail began to master the piccolo flute. In parallel with the flute, the father took his son to the boys’ chapel.

One of the visits of his father’s cousin, conductor Rudolf Barshai, turned out to be fateful for Turetsky’s future. Having heard at a family dinner that Mikhail was playing the flute, the maestro offered him a consultation with one of his professional friends. Having learned that his nephew also sings, his uncle asked the boy to perform a song. After this, Rudolf Borisovich made a call to the director of the Alexander Sveshnikov Choir School with a request to listen to Mikhail without bias. The boy was eleven years old at that time, while the average age of applicants was seven. Despite this, he was accepted into the team.

After graduating from college, having passed a serious competition, Mikhail Turetsky entered the conducting and choral department of the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music. In 1985, having received a diploma with honors, he continued his postgraduate studies and studied symphony conducting. Regularly attends rehearsals of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic under the direction of Evgeny Mravinsky, observing the work of the maestro. Soon the young man becomes a choirmaster and actor at the Theater of Musical Art under the direction of Yuri Sherling.

In 1989, Mikhail Turetsky began recruiting soloists for the men's choir at the Moscow Choral Synagogue. All members of the group had professional musical education. The main goal of the choir was the revival of Jewish sacred music in the country. The group's repertoire consisted of Jewish liturgical music, which had not been performed since the beginning of the 20th century. According to tradition, the musicians sang all works without musical accompaniment, which required high professional training.

Over the course of eighteen months, the choir, under the direction of Mikhail Borisovich, prepared an extensive program of Jewish sacred and secular music, which it successfully performed in Israel, America, Germany, Great Britain, France, Canada, and Spain.

The group quickly became in demand abroad, but in Russia in the early 1990s, it turned out to be difficult for artists to find their audience. In 1993, the musicians were briefly supported by LogoVAZ and the President of the Russian Jewish Congress, Vladimir Gusinsky.

In the mid-1990s, the team was divided into two parts: one remained in Moscow, the second went to the USA to work under a contract. Mikhail Turetsky has to lead both groups at the same time. During the contract, the artist makes about twenty flights from Moscow to Miami! The experience gained by the group while working in the USA significantly influenced the choir’s further repertoire policy and understanding of the syncretic nature of the present show.

In the period from 1999 to 2002, the choir had its own repertoire performance at the Moscow State Variety Theater under the direction of Gennady Khazanov, which takes place twice a month. On this stage the presentation of the choir to the general public of Moscow took place.

In 2003, Mikhail Borisovich discovered his concept in music, leaving a mark on the history of world and domestic show business not only as a professional musician, but also as the creator of such a phenomenon in mass musical culture as the “art group.” From that moment on, his group acquired its modern name: “Art group Turetsky Choir.” Now it is an ensemble of ten soloists, in which all existing types of male voices are represented: from the lowest to the highest. The rebirth of the band opened up broader horizons for the musicians. The choir's repertoire is expanding and goes beyond the boundaries of one national culture.

The new style in which the Turetsky Choir works is partly defined by the concept of “classical crossover”, however, in the creative activities of the art group there are trends that go beyond this concept: polyphonic singing and voice imitation of musical instruments, interactivity and the introduction of elements of happenings. Thus, each concert number turns into a “mini-musical”, and the concert into a show with extraordinary energy. Mikhail himself not only sings, but also brilliantly hosts and directs his own show.

Since 2004, the Turetsky Choir begins extensive concert activities, begins its social life and experiences a rapid rise in its pop career, which is accompanied by many awards and a constant increase in the number of fans. The group performs at the best concert venues in the country and the world. Among them: the Olympic and Ice Palace, the Great Concert Hall "Oktyabrsky", Albert Hall, the largest halls in the USA: Carnegie Hall, Dolby Theatre, Jordan Hall.

In 2008, the Turetsky Choir attracted four sold-out crowds at the State Kremlin Palace and, at the request of the audience, gave an additional sold-out fifth concert at the Luzhniki Sports Palace, which set a kind of record. Artists go on stage about two hundred and fifty times a year, board a plane one hundred times a year, and travel one hundred and twenty thousand kilometers in cars, buses and trains. Despite the fact that the group has existed for more than twenty years, its core is still made up of musicians with whom Mikhail Turetsky has known and been friends since his student years or since the formation of the choir.

In May 2018, Mikhail Turetsky implemented the international peacekeeping campaign “Songs of Victory,” thanks to which famous wartime songs were performed in eight countries around the world: from Paris and Berlin to New York.

Awards and Recognition of Mikhail Turetsky

1994 - 1995 - “Golden Crown of World Cantors” (only 8 people in the world have been awarded this distinction)
2002 - “Honored Artist of the Russian Federation”
2004 - National Award “Person of the Year” in the category “Cultural Event of the Year”;
2010 - “People’s Artist of the Russian Federation”
2011 - “People’s Artist of the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania” and “Honored Artist of the Republic of Ingushetia”
2012 - Order of Honor - For his great contribution to the development of domestic musical art and many years of creative activity
2012 - People's Artist of the Republic of Ingushetia - for outstanding services in the field of musical art and in connection with the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the formation of the Republic of Ingushetia

10 male voices, different and unique... They sing everything that can be sung, and these works become masterpieces. One day they burst onto the air a cappella, without any musical accompaniment, and became famous.

How it all began?

Today everyone knows the art group “Turetsky Choir”, its composition, style and repertoire. Back in 1990, he sang in and only a narrow circle of fans knew about him. The permanent director of the ensemble, Mikhail Turetsky, headed it even then. It was Mikhail who came up with the idea to go out into the world and try the a cappella style in public. And so the future group “Turetsky Choir” was born.

A little about Turkish

Mikhail Turetsky was born in 1962 into a family of Belarusian Jews. His musical talent manifested itself in early childhood, and his parents decided to give him a suitable education.

Mikhail graduated from the choir school and the Gnesinka - musical school. Having received his diploma, in 1989 he announced a competition among musicians-vocalists who wanted to sing in the men's choir of the Moscow synagogue. Turetsky dreamed of giving a second wind to Jewish sacred music. The Jewish tradition used the technique of singing a cappella, that is, without musical accompaniment. This is how the unique style of performance of the future art group “Turetsky Choir” was born. The composition of the team was supposed to be purely professional.

Rich touring experience has become a source of new ideas and a new role for the group. Less than 10 years have passed since the birth of the choir, when Mikhail Turetsky brought the ensemble to the wide stage, uttering a completely new word in music - “art group”.

"Turetsky Choir": group composition

The musical style discovered by Turkish lies in the limitlessness of the vocal and artistic capabilities of the performers. The group combines in its repertoire not only different times and ethnic groups, but also performance styles - from a cappella to variety performance with choreographic elements.

The group consists of 10 soloists representing all varieties of male voices: from the lowest pitch, called bass profundo, to the high masculine timbre called tenor-altino. Today the group “Turetsky Choir” has the following composition:

• Alex Alexandrov - born in 1972, dramatic baritone, assistant choreographer, old-timer of the group.
• Boris Goryachev - born 1971, lyric baritone.
• Vyacheslav Fresh - born 1982, the youngest soloist, counter-tenor.
• Evgeniy Kulmis - born 1966, poet and translator, bass profundo.
• Evgeny Tulinov - born 1964, dramatic tenor, deputy artistic director, Russia.
• Igor Zverev - born 1968, bass cantanto.
• Konstantin Kabo - born 1974, baritone tenor, composer.
• Mikhail Kuznetsov - born 1962, tenor altino, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation.
• - Born in 1962, permanent leader and leader of the group, lyric tenor, Honored and People's Artist of Russia.
• Oleg Blyakhorchuk - born 1966, multi-instrumentalist, lyric tenor.

All participants are professional musicians who are not limited to just vocals.

Women's group - an original move

Mikhail Turetsky never stops searching for new opportunities. At some point, it seemed to him that the group’s work lacked the specifics of female vocals. Thus, in 2009, a variation of the group “Turetsky Choir” was born - the female group “Turetsky SOPRANO”.

From the very beginning, it became clear that Mikhail’s new brainchild would be as unique as the men’s art group. Only the most brilliant professionals were cast, equally attractive to the public not only externally, but also creatively.

The same author's brand, the same form, filled with new feminine content. The group represents all soprano keys and all variations of singing styles. The group has a quality characteristic of the “Turetsky Choir”: the girls have practically no restrictions in the repertoire, so “Turetsky’s SOPRANO” has no analogues in the world of music and pop.

Turetsky's male or female group performs on stage - it is always a bright show, action, musical event with powerful energy, leaving a deep imprint in the hearts of the audience!

Mikhail Turetsky.Leader

M. Turetsky with his wife Liana

- Dad, why are you crying? - asked the eight-year-old daughter.
I was sitting in the city of Long Beach near New York in a state of complete hopelessness on the Broadwalk, a boardwalk along which Americans walk and run for health, and tears flowed from my eyes. I do not know what to do. My partners let me down, I showed my character and was left without money. Behind me is a team of twenty people who have nothing to feed and no money to buy return tickets with. It hasn't been this bad for a long time.
“I don’t have a shoe factory, a store, or even a kiosk.” “I only have sounds that are difficult to sell,” I answered Natasha.
- Dad, you bring joy to people! And this is much better than a stall. Stop crying, let’s go,” my daughter pulled me by the sleeve.
And I got up and went. There is no point in shedding tears in front of a little girl. You can't give up and become limp.
There were plenty of reasons for pessimism: I was already thirty and still unsuccessfully trying to make a living from classical music. He inspired the choir he led that it was possible, you just need to find the right path. All responsibility lay with me, and there was nowhere to wait for support. Who would have thought that I would hear the right words from my daughter. Natasha said so childishly simply about “joy to people” that I found a second wind and found a way to get out. And then, and many more times before I achieved success.

Few people manage to sell creativity. I don’t know how I succeeded in this. There is an anecdote on the topic: “In Soviet times, a professor’s daughter was asked: “How did you, who received a classical music education and was raised in an intelligent family, become a currency prostitute?” - "It was just luck!" So I was lucky. Just not right away.

My childhood passed in a small Moscow communal apartment near the Belorusskaya metro station. We occupied a fourteen-meter room. There was no one to pamper my brother and me: there were no grandparents, dad and mom were busy surviving. My father worked as a foreman in a silk-screen printing workshop at a factory near Moscow, and my mother worked as a nanny in a kindergarten.
Dad, Boris Borisovich Epstein, is one of the blacksmith’s six children, originally from Belarus. His father, a powerful man known throughout the area, died at forty-two from pneumonia. In late autumn, he came out of the forge hot and caught a cold. So at fourteen, dad, together with his older brother, became the head of a large family. Having matured, he realized that they could not feed themselves in the village, and at eighteen he went to study in Moscow, at the Academy of Foreign Trade, dragging all his brothers and sisters to the capital.
A competent, intelligent person, he quickly made a career in the Exportles organization, received living space - seven square meters in the center of Moscow - and easily learned German, since it was similar to Yiddish. Looking ahead, I’ll say: once in New York at age eighty-five, my father managed to communicate there too, because English, it turns out, is also similar to Yiddish...
At twenty-seven, dad began to think about a family. Finding himself with relatives in the town of Pukhovichi near Minsk, in a poor, clean hut he saw a seventeen-year-old Jewish girl playing the guitar. “This will be my wife,” dad decided and left for Moscow.
His relatives talked to the girl’s family: “What kind of nose he has, you can see for yourself, but we guarantee that it won’t deceive.”
In October 1940, her father took Bela Turetskaya to Moscow. And in July 1941, the Germans entered the town and destroyed my mother’s entire family. They were forced to dig their own graves and buried alive. In the same 1941, my father went to the front. He took part in the breakthrough of the Leningrad blockade and was awarded government awards for this. As a boy, every year my father took me to Leningrad to places of military glory, showed me the transit point on Fontanka, 90, historical places, and took me to the Tovstonogovsky BDT.

Parents of M. Turetsky

Of every hundred people called up in the first days of the war, only three returned. The dead were recognized as heroes. But dad couldn’t even get his job back. Largely because after the war, Stalin’s officials did not favor Jews, even if they had passed from Moscow to Berlin.
“Do you want to work at Vneshtorg? - they told him. - Please. We have a branch. On Pechora." Dad did not want to leave Moscow and, giving up his career, got a job at a factory.
My older brother Sasha had problems with his lungs. My father’s salary was six hundred rubles, and a consultation with a pulmonologist professor was five hundred. “Your son’s life is in your hands,” said the doctor, escalating the already tense situation.
And dad committed a crime: he wrapped his body in silk scarves, put on a leather jacket left over from the front, and took the products outside the factory to sell them later. Somehow he managed to come to an agreement with the workers who made a batch for him beyond the norm. But private entrepreneurship at that time was punishable by law and threatened with imprisonment for up to five years. There were thirty-eight women in the workshop, mostly single, destitute by the war, and not a single one called Petrovka. How he managed to build such correct relationships with so many women - only God knows!
We didn't live well. We had neither a car nor a dacha; all the father needed was to save his son from illness. And he did it.
I'm an unplanned child. Mom gave birth to me at forty, dad was already almost fifty. Everyone unanimously dissuaded my mother, she had a bad heart, but she did it her way. Friends advised my parents to name me Yura, because I was born on Cosmonautics Day, the twelfth of April, a year after Gagarin’s flight.
“Yur-r-ra? - Dad said, grazing slightly. “It’s a tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-pronounceable name.” Let there be Misha."
My brother and I are Turkish because my mother explained to my father: There are Epsteins, but there are no Turetskys left—the surname must be preserved. And dad easily agreed with this. I had a real Jewish mother. There is an anecdote that accurately conveys the essence of her character: “What is the difference between an Arab terrorist and a Jewish mother? You can come to an agreement with a terrorist." My brother and I became the meaning of her life. And dad found a worthy place for himself, living as if in his own world. He provided for the family, answered our questions, but never overloaded or demanded attention. He never told me when I grew up:
“Why didn’t you come? Why didn’t you call?”
Mom always lacked something, despite the fact that we were loving and caring sons and visited them with our father almost every day. When we said goodbye and left, dad immediately returned to his business, and she stood at the window until the car disappeared, and I understood: we didn’t give her enough again...

“A Jewish boy with dark eyes, and there is such Russian sadness in them...” - this is about me. At the age of one and a half I already began to hum, at three I sang in a row all the songs that came from the TV and radio: “An order was given for him to the west, for her - in the other direction, the Komsomol members were leaving for the civil war.” I didn’t understand what it was about, and instead of “order” I sang “refusal”. On Sundays, my father allowed himself to lie in bed a little longer, and I climbed under his side. It was then that the repertoire policy of the future “Turetsky Choir” was forged. “Dad, give us “Care,” I said, and we dragged on: “Our care is simple...” or “Twist and Charleston, you filled the globe...”

The songs of the Soviet era are amazing. I sang them with fanatical joy, and my parents understood: we need to teach the boy. At that moment we got a second room in a communal apartment and a piano. They found a piano teacher for me. The lesson cost ten rubles - a serious test for the family budget. And at the age of six, I liked to walk on the street with friends, and not figure out what a bass clef is. Having received the assignment for home, I counted the number of notes in the exercise and drummed on the first keys I came across. Mom compared the number of notes with the number of strokes on the keyboard and sighed in disappointment:
- What kind of nonsense is this?
“Such a sketch,” I shrugged.
This lasted four months. The one hundred and sixty rubles spent did not materialize into quality. “Untalented boy,” said the teacher. “Don’t waste your money.”
I was happy: I was spared from suffering. But my voice grew, I sat down at the piano and, not knowing the notes, picked out the melody by ear - “Lilac Fog”, “You are the only one for me”. Guests came, they put me on a chair, I sang - everyone was delighted. “A talented boy is growing up! Must study."
And my mother took me this time to a state music school. On the notice board there is a leaflet “Services and prices: piano - 20 rubles. per month, violin - 19 rubles, oboe, horn - 9 rubles, flute - 3 rubles, piccolo flute - 1 rubles. 50 kopecks.”
"ABOUT! - said mom. — The piccolo flute will suit us. It’s not expensive, and you’ll enjoy the musical process.”
Recently, my artists gave me a piccolo flute and engraved their nicknames on the entire fingering: Tulya, Kuzya, Boar, Beast... I took it and realized that the hands remember everything. And then, in four years, I learned to play masterfully. At the same time, my father took me to the boys’ chapel.
“You have a talented child,” the teacher once said, “it would be nice if his father came to see me.”
“And this is me...” answered dad.
And then I realized that he was old and looked like my grandfather. Since my parents are old, it means I will soon lose them. The fear settled in my childhood heart that I might lose this mighty roof over my head. I decided to become independent as quickly as possible, because I would soon be alone...
I don’t know what I could have come up with, but fate intervened. In the person of his father’s cousin, the famous musician Rudolf Barshai. He gained particular fame after 1977, when he left the USSR for the West, performed with the Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra and became the chief conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Things didn't work out for him in his homeland. Probably, the authorities could not entrust the orchestra to a morally unstable person, married three times, the last time to a Japanese woman.

When the very young Rudolf arrived in Moscow, his father placed a folding bed for him on his seven meters. In the summer they went to my father’s older brother’s dacha, where Rudik went to the wooden restroom in the morning and there, on the push, from five to eight he “sawed” on the violin, so as not to disturb anyone. This is how steel is hardened. At that time, the Soviet music school was considered the best in the world, as well as ballet and space. The world's outstanding orchestras are cemented by Soviet musicians. And today... Who will sit from five to eight on the “point” in order to achieve something?
Uncle Rudolf managed to recognize my talent before he emigrated. One day he came to visit us.
- What is Misha doing? - Uncle asked.
I played the flute.
- Sing.
I sang.
“Musical guy,” he assessed. — I’ll call the director of the Sveshnikov Choir School.
My uncle called in front of me. “Look at the boy - if it’s not his door, don’t take it,” he said wisely.
I was accepted into school at the age of eleven. I immediately fell behind, the rest of the children studied from seven, some had already played Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto. On the very first day, I sobbed and said to my father:
- Don't want! I can not!
“Do what you want,” dad said and walked away.
Catching up with peers has become the meaning of life. Eventually I got involved. I couldn’t study at home: my neighbor in the communal apartment was making a “goat face.” Hearing the sounds of music, a seventy-year-old locomotive driver, a communist with the Order of Lenin on his pajamas, chased me around the apartment shouting: “The Israeli devil!” School classes started at eight thirty. I got up at five forty, washed my face, munched a sandwich as I walked, and rushed by metro to school on Krasnaya Presnya. At six-thirty I was already sitting at the piano and working before classes started. Which child today is capable of this?

By the eighth grade, I caught up with my classmates, despite the terrible competition. Out of two thousand applicants, twenty boys were accepted. Ten completed their studies until the bitter end. Even with such selection, few people make a successful career. You need connections and money. But if you can “shot” in pop music if you have only these two components, in classical music you can’t do without education. Sometimes in the conservatory, with a half-empty hall, there are concerts that could cost millions, they are so brilliant. But turning them into a product that people will buy is not always possible, because understanding classical music is accessible to few. And often talented musicians seem to be out of this world; they are simply not perceived as stars. And well-packaged banality sells well because it looks appropriate. What is glamor? This is a cheap product, expensively presented. My musicians and I were lucky to study music at the end of the Soviet system. This was the time of unmercenary teachers who invested their souls in their students. And we studied with the same enthusiasm. “Gnesinka”, where I entered after graduating from choir school, is the Higher School of Music. In this Temple of the Muses, I was made a conductor - a seasoned musician, capable of elevating and leading people. I absorbed musical science like a sponge, for the time being not burdening myself with thoughts about my daily bread. But quite early - at twenty-one - the time came, I fell in love and got married.

Lena had an upturned nose, an open smile and bottomless eyes. A real Russian beauty. We met at Gnesinka, she combined her studies with work - she sang in Minin’s choir. We had a lot in common, we learned the basics of music together, went to concerts, plays and an ice skating rink. Both loved nature. I became her first man. At twenty-two, Natasha was born to us. It was probably a little early, but we were happy. Against the wishes of the parents. Both believed that we were of different breeds. They did not create any obstacles, but from individual remarks it was easy to guess: the relatives were not happy.
“I would like my daughter to marry a man of her own nationality,” her father told my mother before the wedding.

My mother dreamed of seeing me next to a Jewish girl. After all, fifty generations of my ancestors married only their own.

Well, so what? Love erases all differences. My father-in-law realized this over time. He was a real Russian officer, a deeply decent and intelligent person. He and Lena had an amazing relationship. Like one soul for two. And they were very similar in character - absolute restraint and extreme kindness. Lena loved me devotedly and never demanded anything, but I had to prove to myself and others that I could not be a boy, but a husband and breadwinner.
How could I earn money? Private transportation. I’ve had my license since I was nineteen, I even went in for motorsports. I somehow managed to find time between music classes. I took part in the rally once and came sixteenth from the end. But the main thing is participation! I sold all my valuables, including a leather jacket and a radio, borrowed more from my brother and bought a used Zhiguli model eleven. Since then, every Saturday evening and beyond, I went to work. Everything happened: they took away my earnings for the evening, asked me to get out of the car, and didn’t pay, but thank the Creator, there were no serious consequences for my health.

By the end of my fifth year, I was working in four places at the same time. In a large supermarket in Strogino he was a “night director,” that is, a loader. I received five or six cars a night: three with bread, two with dairy products and sometimes sausage. The sausage was the worst blow, because I had to turn all one and a half to two tons with my own hands, weigh it, and also make sure that the driver and the forwarder didn’t steal a couple of loaves. But the word “deficit”, under the slogan of which the perestroika country lived, did not exist for me. When I rushed from Strogino to the center after a night shift to teach music to children, the traffic cops on the highway saluted me: once every two months I brought them a box of buckwheat and tea to the department. I made various connections and acquaintances. I was completely fine, but my soul still thirsted for music and creativity.

Finally I found something to please her. In parallel with the store and teaching, he began working with an Orthodox church choir and at the same time with a political song ensemble. After some time, I became convinced that I had not made a mistake with my profession. And working with the actors of the School of Musical Art theater under the direction of Yuri Sherling, I realized that I could teach anyone to sing. I will bring even a non-singing ballerina to the level of pop performance.

I don’t know how long our marriage with Lena would have lasted. Today it’s hard for me to talk about this, because so many years have passed. I only know that our feelings were sincere and real. It is believed that early unions do not stand the test of time. But it is not destined to know whether this would be true in our case...
In August 1989, together with my friend and teacher Vladimir Anufrievich Semenyuk, I went by car to Klaipeda to visit his graduate student, a Lithuanian. Talks about music, trips to Palanga, sun, sea and sand. In all respects it was a pleasant trip. One day, despite the late hour, I couldn’t fall asleep, although at twenty-seven I didn’t know what insomnia was. At half past two in the morning the doorbell rang. Telegram. “Call urgently. Sasha,” wrote the older brother. “Is there something wrong with mom or dad?” — I thought frantically. In 1989, there was no place to call Moscow from Klaipeda at night. Semenyuk and I drove to the city center and found ourselves in front of the locked doors of the telephone booth. I didn’t find a place for myself until half past seven. And when I was finally able to dial the phone number, I heard my mother’s voice on the receiver. “So she’s okay,” was the first thing I thought.
“Control yourself,” said mom. - They all died.
I did not get anything.
- Who is everyone, mom?
— Lena, her father and brother.
I hung up the phone, went out into the street on weak legs and, having reached the lawn, collapsed into the grass. The teacher ran up to me.
“Vladimir Anufrievich, give me a cigarette,” I asked. “Something is burning inside.”
- What happened, Misha?
I couldn’t answer, I jumped up and ran to call again. Mom, who survived the death of all her relatives, dictated in a calm, even voice: “Seventy-first kilometer from Minsk, police station number...”
Lena, her father and brother went to Vilnius for a relative’s birthday. Lena's father, a neat and pedant, never violated traffic rules. It will not take the car out of the garage if the turn signal does not work. He did not trust the steering wheel even to his son, who had just returned from the army, where he served as a driver. Nobody knows what happened to my father-in-law, but on the way back to Moscow, his car flew into oncoming traffic. The Ikarus driving along it began to go into a ditch, but the Zhiguli caught up with the bus and, having hit, flew into its lane, where they were crushed under a heavy ZIL.
All the way to the accident site I thought: “This is a mistake. It can not be so. It's not them." Finally we arrived. Some guy on a tractor showed me the exact location of the incident. “I’ve been driving for twenty-five years, but I’ve never seen such a terrible disaster,” he said. - This is where it was...
And I realized that I had hoped in vain. On the side of the road lay a crumpled green souvenir horseshoe. My “foreign” gift to my father-in-law.
In the nearest town I bought a bottle of vodka, all the flowers I had,
and returned to the scene of the tragedy. The teacher and I had a drink. We smoked. We sat in some kind of coma, and then I called the police department. “Come for the corpses and take the car,” they told me.
I will never forget the long journey home. A truck with three coffins was walking ahead, and I was driving behind it. It was somehow impossible to overtake...
I was scared to see my mother-in-law. A woman who lost her children and husband in an instant. During these couple of days my face became the color of asphalt. What can we say about her? But the mother-in-law sat surrounded by her friends and behaved well - she was pumped full of tranquilizers.
As an intelligent person, she was silent, but I knew what my mother-in-law was thinking: “You are alive, but Lena is not.” I could go with my wife or invite her to Klaipeda. But he didn’t do anything fateful that would change the fateful route.
After some time, my mother-in-law began to persistently suggest that I give up Natasha and get guardianship for her. Her relatives came to me:
- Why do you need a child? You are still young.
“With all due respect, I can’t,” I replied. — Jews do not abandon their children.
I wanted to take the girl into my apartment, entrusting her to the care of my mother, but then I realized that separation from my granddaughter would finish off my mother-in-law, distraught with grief.

Photo: from the archive of M. Turetsky

At this moment I was in dire need of help. And this help came to me from above. I was offered to create a choir of Jewish sacred music in Moscow. It was a salvation. The music of my ancestors - an ancient powerful art - gave me the strength to live.
In eighteen months we made a program that we performed in England, France, Israel, America, and Canada. The choir was financed by the Jewish charitable foundation "Joint". When they realized that the leader of the team is an individual, is not ready for stupid submission and wants to go to large concert venues, they lost the desire to support us. And since 1992, the choir and I were left without support. It was a very difficult task to promote the Jewish Choir brand in Russia. It seemed to everyone that we were singing only for Jews. I wanted to prove that this is not so. But it didn't work out very well. We had no money, no advertising. One naked enthusiasm.
It was difficult for us to make our way to America, because it was the only place at that moment where we could make money. Eventually, things started to work out. New friends helped, who saw us as a fantastically talented project. And although there were few performances - mostly on weekends, we were recognized by critics and professional musicians. Relationships in the team were also difficult. I remember in 1993, after ten days of aimlessly living in a Brooklyn apartment while waiting for work in California, a revolution almost happened in our team. Eight out of sixteen people signed an ultimatum: they say, we don’t understand why we need California, we don’t believe that they will pay us, we refuse to go. The situation had to be resolved in the twenty-eight hours it took to travel by bus from New York to Miami. I made a speech: “I won’t let the project fall apart!” Then he summoned the conspirators one by one: “You, Alexey, are fired. Vladimir, if you want to leave and then come back, please. You, Leonid, how much money do you want to stay?” In general, I bribed four members of the team, released two, fired two - and the opposition was crushed. Oh, I knew the psychology of Soviet people well. I'm like that myself.
In 1994, I was advised to apply for financial support from LogoVAZ. I called, and Berezovsky arrived at the synagogue where we were rehearsing and said: “You have twenty-five minutes.” We sang to him in beautiful voices. “I give five thousand dollars a month,” Boris Abramovich promised. We divided this money among twenty people, receiving a good increase in salary for a year. Then things turned sour. Berezovsky left, his assistants said: “In order to continue helping you, Borya must love you, and we have money in our account. Borya loves you, but there is no money.”
Gusinsky, who headed the Russian Jewish Congress in those years, also loved us at one time and even supported us. I always thanked both Gusinsky and Berezovsky very much during concerts, until my senior friend, the famous artist Gennady Khazanov, after a show at the Variety Theater said: “Mish, why do you bow to them all the time? Did they build you a house in Spain? Gusinsky succinctly helped you only so that he would be supported by the Jewish lobby in America.” In 1995, we turned to Aizenshpis. He said: “I need one and a half million dollars from Logovaz, and the country will fall asleep and wake up thinking about the Jewish choir.” But LogoVAZ had already ended at that time. There was nowhere to get one and a half million, and at the end of the year I divided the choir into two parts. One stayed in Moscow, the other went with me on a contract to Miami. I could have taken a beautiful girl with me, but I went with an elderly mother and daughter. My mother-in-law was terribly afraid that I might not return, so I carefully prepared my granddaughter, who was then eleven years old: in case I suddenly decided to stay overseas, Natasha had to stand on her hind legs and declare: “I want to go to my grandmother in Russia!” But she didn't do it, although sometimes it was really difficult for her. The daughter studied at an institution for wealthy children. The school bus took home first those who were richer, then the middle ones, and she was the last. At that time I had neither the reputation nor respect that I have today, and Natasha was looked at as an emigrant from a poor family.
Only my mother felt quite comfortable, she even had a platonic affair with the owner of the cafe, Mr. Nevel, thanks to whom she remembered Yiddish. They rattled on all evening, hoping that I didn’t understand anything. Dad arrived later and decided that Mom, at seventy-three, could not be disturbed. He didn't like America much. “There is no Bolshoi Theater, I have nothing to do here. “I’m delighted with New York City, but I won’t pull my cap off my head. The Soviets have their own pride: they look down on the bourgeoisie,” he recited Mayakovsky and four months later returned to his homeland.
But I never wanted to go to America forever. I respect Western values, but even more - the Bolshoi Theater, the skating rink, the summer sky over Moscow at five in the morning. I wanted to live in my homeland. And I decided to try my luck one last time. If I don’t receive support, I will say goodbye to the idea of ​​a Jewish choir in Russia forever. Overseas, things finally started to work out for us. We shocked the local public so much that the Miami authorities issued a proclamation declaring February 6th “Moscow Choir Day.”
This time I began to attack the office of Joseph Davydovich Kobzon. Made one and a half thousand calls, no less. I bought cards and called Russia from a payphone. Maybe I knocked louder than others, but as a result Kobzon heard me. And he took us on his anniversary tour of Russia and the CIS, which became a kind of breakthrough for the team.
After a couple of years, I decided to change our odious non-profit name “Jewish Choir”. In addition, we felt cramped within the colossal, powerful, but only Jewish music - after all, this is only a part of world musical culture. The choir members are mostly Russian, the audience is people of different nationalities. Why not perform other music, such as classical, folk, jazz, rock? This is how the “Mikhail Turetsky Choir” was born.
Joseph Davydovich did not approve of such changes, he swore, believing that I was betraying my roots. I think accusing me of cheating is unfair. The choir carried its name in a more difficult time, when even the Jews themselves were in no hurry to invite us to their performances.
So, it was 2001, and I toured America with my band. After some time, my daughter Natasha, who lived with me in the States, was returned to her grandmother. My mother-in-law finally appreciated me. Since then we have lived in peace. True, I never held a grudge against her, I understand her: my future son-in-law has not done anything bad to me yet, but I no longer love him.

Mikhail Turetsky with his mother-in-law and daughter

For twelve years I was single. I couldn’t imagine that I would bring “someone else’s aunt” into the house and tell Natasha: “This is our new mother.” Some girls made attempts to make a husband out of me. Then I went to the Chief Rabbi of Russia Adolf Solomonovich Shaevich and said:
- What to do? I was pushed against the wall.
“If you can’t get married, don’t get married,” he answered.
I could, because my career, the formation of the choir and obligations to myself and the team seemed much more important than novels. Until I met Liana. I remember the feeling of shock when I looked into her huge green eyes. “Two waves remained in your eyes so that I could drown, plunging into them...”
We met after a concert in Dallas. Liana's father was one of the organizers of our performances. On October thirty-first, Halloween was just celebrated in America, and Liana wanted to spend this festive evening with her child, but she could not offend her dad, who insisted that her daughter listen to a Jewish choir from Russia. As an intelligent person, Liana came backstage to thank the musicians for the concert. Marta Klioner, our impresario in the States in those years, saw her with her daughter and asked where her husband was.

Mikhail Turetsky with his wife and her daughter Sarina

- My husband ate too many pears! — my future wife answered.
- So we have so many boys in our team, I’ll introduce you! - Martha intercepted Liana and took her to meet the artists.
We ran into each other in the corridor - a beautiful, flashy girl and next to her a little curly-haired angel, her daughter Sarina. As an artist who spent a month on tour, Liana’s appearance—her high heels and exposed belly—made an indelible impression on me. We started talking. I wanted to tell her a few non-trivial compliments. I suggested that we all go to a restaurant together and have coffee. Three cocktails increased the concentration of romance in my body. And I said to Liana: “Let’s go to you.” I already knew by that time that she was an independent girl, living separately from her parents in a two-story house. She resisted, but I showed slight persistence. We went to Liana and talked with her until the morning. I offered to go on a tour with us, to which Liana feigned inaccessibility and called a taxi to take me to the hotel. This is how our acquaintance began.

The team moved on to Houston. Already in the next city, Chicago, I felt that I wanted to call this girl. I dialed her number after the performance, and we again talked all night. It cost me a fee for two concerts. But some life values ​​and positions have already been determined. I invited Liana to come to us for the central concert of the tour at Carnegie Hall in New York, but she culturally refused, citing the fact that she could not leave work and leave the child for a long time. After Carnegie Hall, I came to see her in Dallas myself. The next day, when Liana was picking Sarina up from kindergarten, the teacher called her aside: “Do you know what your daughter said? She said that the uncle from the concert is now sleeping at your house!”

It was time to decide on my feelings. Mom always missed the extended family she lost in Belarus. On that visit, I visited all of Liana’s relatives and realized that my mother would approve of this option. Family and relationships are the same as in a Belarusian town, only at a high American level.
At first Liana refused to leave her big friendly family, okay
paid work as a programmer and move to Moscow before I posed the question harshly. Her relatives were not happy with our plans. Grandfather, as an experienced person, said that an artist is a gypsy, which is bad for family life. And when I came to Liana’s parents to ask for their daughter’s hand in marriage, her dad warned that she had a very difficult character. But she and I are naughty people. And yet they convinced their parents. Then problems arose with the removal of Sarina. I adopted her and moved her to Russia.
The team and I followed our own special path, bypassing the chain of “producer-TV-public-box office”. They got into show business with one foot, stayed in art with the other, and with that they came to concert venues. For some time, however, I was still trying to find a producer. In 2003, I came to Joseph Prigogine, he listened to the track for about forty seconds and began to wag his foot, look at his phone, and hint: I was wasting my time.
“Iosik, you overlooked me! - now I tell him. “I wish I could “mow it” now!”
Today he talks to me for forty minutes on the phone and doesn’t mind his time. “Perhaps it would be better if you came to visit?” - I suggest.
The choir chose its own musical policy - we did not limit ourselves exclusively to classical music. There are also pop, rock, jazz and musicals. Only classics are like formal trousers in the wardrobe, beautiful, expensive, but alone. But you can change into something more democratic. Or combine it, as they began to do in Hollywood, by wearing a tuxedo with jeans and sneakers. Today, musical fusion is winning - a mixture of styles, when you can offer people different sensations in a unit of time. I will be grateful to the one who will shorten the divine lengths in Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” and fit four volumes of the novel into five hundred pages so that modern children can master it. I apply similar abbreviations to classical music. After all, it’s not easy to perceive it. You need to tune in, open your soul. Many people have the desire, but no time. I can introduce the listener to Verdi in ten minutes, seasoning the music with the enzyme of pop rock for easier perception. As a result, Verdi sounds like Queen. And this is not a parody. Not banter, not popular speech, just a different, modern interpretation. A music critic might call me an upstart who takes what is easiest and most accessible, thus making money. But if I were him, I would say thank you to Turetsky, an agitator and promoter of good music.

Group "Soprano"

Mikhail Turetsky is a popular domestic musician and performer. He is best known as the producer and founder of an art group called the Turetsky Choir. In 2010 he received the title of People's Artist of Russia.

Childhood and youth

Mikhail Turetsky was born in Moscow in 1962. He was the second child in the family, and an unwanted one, at least for his father. Boris Borisovich Epstein, that was the name of the father of the hero of our article, tried in every possible way to dissuade his wife from having a second child. There were a lot of reasons: hard times, old age of the parents, sickly first-born Alexander, with whom there were always a lot of problems.

Today we can only be grateful to the musician’s mother for insisting on her own. On April 12, Bella Semyonovna gave birth to a boy, Misha. It is interesting that Turetsky is not his pseudonym at all, but the surname of his mother, which he took to perform on stage.

The nationality of Mikhail Turetsky is Jewish. This created certain problems when he was growing up, but no one paid attention to it during his childhood. Misha's parents constantly disappeared from work in order to earn money to support their two sons. Therefore, the main responsibilities for his upbringing fell on the shoulders of his older brother Alexander, who was 15 years older. This activity, of course, was a burden to him, so he often left the child next to the radio or TV on, while he went for a walk.

Creative inclinations

Apparently, this played a certain positive role in the biography of Mikhail Turetsky. When the parents found out about this kind of upbringing, they didn’t even punish Alexander, because they noticed that little Misha was constantly singing along to the songs that were played on the air. And he does it well, demonstrating good inclinations. The main hit at that time was the song "Lilac Fog".

Mikhail Turetsky's father worked as a workshop foreman, and his mother was a kindergarten teacher. The family always had little money, but over time they managed to save up for an extra room in a communal apartment near the Belorusskaya metro station, where they all lived. There was even money left over for an old piano.

The musical instrument was purchased so that Misha could study at home with a guest music tutor, honing his talent. However, the teacher was not as optimistic as the parents. About six months later, she stated that there was no point in continuing to study, because the child had absolutely no hearing.

This upset his parents, but the persistent Mikhail Turetsky convinced them to give him another chance. He entered a music school and started learning to play the flute because it was the cheapest thing.

Education

In 1973, an important event occurred that cannot be ignored in the biography of Mikhail Turetsky. He met his father's cousin, who turned out to be the world famous conductor and violist Rudolf Barshai. Hearing that Misha was going to music school and was also trying to sing, Rudolf asked him to perform something. The boy’s vocal abilities sincerely delighted him, and soon he was able to enroll him in the prestigious choir school named after Sveshnikov. It was possible to do this only through pull.

In 2005, Mikhail decided to write his own autobiography, in which he sets out in detail his entire story, how he managed to achieve success, what obstacles were overcome along the way. Tells how Mikhail Turetsky's songs became popular.

In 2008, it seems that the team is reaching the peak of its popularity. They give a concert at the State Kremlin Palace. They are beginning to be considered one of the most famous and popular artists in the country, but Turetsky does not even think about stopping there.

Women's team

In 2010, he launches a new project called SOPRANO. Essentially, this is the female version of the “Turetsky Choir”. The girls from this group, produced by Mikhail himself, are quickly becoming popular. They perform at prestigious festivals.

For example, on “Song of the Year”, “Slavic Bazaar”, “New Wave”. 2010 becomes a successful year for Mikhail in the sense that he is awarded the title of People's Artist of Russia and the Order of Honor.

Personal life

Mikhail Turetsky built the family in 1984. His classmate Elena becomes his chosen one. In the same year, their daughter Natasha is born. It was Elena who died in the accident along with her brother and father, after which Mikhail left with Natalya on a tour of America.

His daughter liked it in the USA. There she even began performing on stage for the first time. However, her father managed to convince her to try herself in some other field, because he himself already understood what hard work it was. The main argument was that music and vocals would completely deprive the girl of her personal life. She did not dare to do this; as a result, she began studying law. Now she works as a lawyer in the office of the Turetsky Choir, promptly resolving all emerging issues.

In 2014, she gave her father a grandson, Ivan, and in 2016, her daughter Elena was born.

Mikhail Turetsky himself also had children. In 2001, an illegitimate daughter named Isabel was born, this happened after a short affair with Tatyana Borodovskaya. And in 2002, the hero of our article married for the second time. He chose an Armenian woman named Liana as his wife, whom he met during a regular tour of America, which was organized by the girl’s father.

Even before her marriage to Turetsky, Liana already had a child - daughter Sarina. Despite this, the couple decided to have children together. In 2005, Emmanuelle was born to them, and four years later Beata.

Activities in recent years

Now the age of Mikhail Turetsky is 56 years old. It’s a lot for a musician and vocalist, but he doesn’t even think about leaving the stage yet. All his life he has shown himself to be a workaholic; he has recruited the same enthusiasts into his team and has no intention of slowing down.

The Turetsky Choir, together with its leader and inspirer, gives about two hundred concerts annually in Russia and abroad. At the same time, artists are actively developing social networks so that fans can watch them literally in real time.

In 2017, several important and significant events occurred in Turetsky’s life. He received the Order of Friendship for the development of culture, and also married his daughter Sarina to Tornik Tsertsvadze. Sarina is Liana’s daughter from her first marriage, whom Mikhail himself has long considered practically his own.

At the moment, the group "Turetsky Choir" has already released eight albums. The first was released in 1999 under the name High Holidays, then there were the records Bravissimo, “Turetsky Choir Presents”, “When Men Sing”, “Born to Sing”, “Moscow - Jerusalem”, “Music of All Times”, “The Show Must Go On”.

When talking about their work, artists often like to emphasize that during the year they have to board a plane about a hundred times, travel about 120 thousand kilometers by car, and also travel considerable distances by trains and buses. But they all admire their leader and respect him very much.

The famous Russian conductor and his wife talked about what motivates a person to creative development.

Mikhail and Liana Turetsky. Photo: personal archive.