Oriented on making people closer

On Saturday and Sunday evenings, the Ashgabat Palace of Mukam presented the audience with a concert entitled "Songs of Our Youth". Clarification of whose youth, that is, what age category was meant by the word "ours" in the poster, was not required. The expectations of the public somehow correlated with what was popular 50 years ago, and what we heard 20-30, or even 10 or even 5 years ago, because we were younger then too.

But the pronoun "our" rather denotes a state than a time frame. The state when a song becomes "ours" regardless of the country of origin or nationality of its authors and performers. Everyone knows and recognizes her, humming and singing along.

The concert was unusual precisely for this mood – warm, kind, without pathos, but cozy and homely. Small touches of scenic design in the form of a real radio, a record player, a retro sofa with a coffee table and a lamp under a vintage lampshade brought a feeling like from a family album with old photos, in which parents are so young and beautiful, in love and happy that you want to envy them kindly.

The audience happily gasped and pointed to each other on the stage: "We had the same at home!", referring to those bulky electronic devices on furniture legs that some of our contemporaries still found in their childhood.

But then the musicians of the orchestra came out, then the members of the choir, sat down in their places. The presenters of the concert – a guy and a girl - greeted the audience and immediately established emotional contact with her, no longer leaving the stage for a minute, not just presenting each number, but moderating the entire interactive show, connecting both the audience and the artists to the dialogue, exchanging jokes and improvising on the go.

And according to the organizers, the program was opened by a cult thing - the song "Conquest of Paradise", written by the Greek composer Vangelis. This is the soundtrack to Ridley Scott's 1992 film of the same name with Gerard Depardieu in the role of Christopher Columbus, footage from which, along with stunning music and beautiful voices of the State Choir of Turkmenistan, plunged the audience into the atmosphere of epic romance of adventure and discovery.

By chance or on purpose, this happened, but the "seafaring" prologue will resonate several more times in the concert, as in the hit "From Dawn to Dawn" from the Soviet period film "Songs of the Sea" to Muslim Magomayev's masterpiece "Blue Eternity". And in this there is a direct association with traveling on the sea of life.

The high bar of the concert was set by such masters of the Turkmen music scene as Atageldi Garyagdyyev – his invariably imposing appearance inspires awe before the status of a great artist, and the way he easily fascinates the audience with his voice when his baritone penetrates into the very heart, always causes awe.

The powerful vocal duet of Myratgeldi Bayramgeldyyev and Gulnar Nuryyeva with songs from the films "Arshin mal Alan" and "The Trick of the Old Ashir", accompanied by painfully familiar movie frames, charged with cheerful optimism.

And one of the soloists was "announced" from the monitor by the popular Soviet singer and winner of the All-Union competition of young performers "Golden Tuning Fork" in 1980, Katya Semenova. Her name immediately popped up in the memory of older viewers and rustled through the rows. This technique was invented by the organizers for the appearance on stage of the winner of the Grand Prix "Golden Tuning Fork" Berdymyrat Berdyyev – another legend of Turkmen music.

In addition to venerable singers, young stars also performed in the concert, including Leyli Okdirova, Dovran Shammyyev and others. The melodies from the films "Seventeen Moments of Spring", "My affectionate and Gentle Beast", "Ivan Vasilyevich changes his profession", the hit of Celine Dion from "Titanic" were played for decades, and Whitney Houston was not without it.

When one of the young performers smartly presented James Brown's ageless smash hit I feel good, forcing the whole hall to dance, and the presenters thanked him "Thank you for the song!", from the audience it was amicably heard: "And for the dance!".

No less infectious was a representative of the older generation of musicians with the "Song about Hares" from the "Diamond Hand", he even conveyed the timbre of Yuri Nikulin, seasoning the number with his own charisma.

Perfectly performed the role of Jimmy from the Indian blockbuster of the 80s "Disco Dancer" and sang a song by Raj Kapoor from "Vagabond" Ahmet Atajanov, causing a flurry of delight and applause.

In general, everyone was on top – incendiary presenters, talented musicians, a magnificent choir, famous soloists and their young ambitious successors, conductors and heads of creative collectives of the Palace of Mukam, who, I think, put a lot of work into staging this creative show. And it succeeded!

The first sign is children, the most sincere and direct part of the audience. And then they announced that you can dance right on stage if you want. The first stage was attacked by two babies from different sides, soon their example was followed by other children, and from song to song they became more and more.

Some, hurrying to join the group under the spotlights, stumbled and fell on the steps, to which the soloists managed to react and support between the words of the song: "It's okay! Get up, run to me!".

And it was absolutely fabulous when at the same time it was possible to sing into the same microphone with the artist. The singer, who performed "A million scarlet roses" in a circle of children, was so touched by the incomparable participation of the kids that in the end she said "Is happiness in bouquets? Our millions of roses are our children!".

Victoria SCHUPAK

Photo: author's photo