“It turns out that listening to the orchestra is interesting!”
The head of the creative planning department of the Tyumen Philharmonic Svetlana Chueva won the A.V. Lunacharsky in the nomination “Worker of a concert organization.” The award is annually awarded to employees of museums, theaters, libraries and other cultural institutions within the framework of the St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum, which will be held this year from 15 to 17 November. She told the Kultura.RF portal about how listeners loved classical music, what the Philharmonic “Press Day” is and why for Cesaria Evora in Tyumen they knitted socks.
– Svetlana Vasilyevna, your experience in the philharmonic society is amazing – 41 years!
– Everything turned out to some extent by chance. Even before the philharmonic, I worked for 15 years in an organization that was called “House of amateur art activities”. We were engaged in amateur groups – we conducted reviews, went to concerts. At this moment, the north of the Tyumen Region has already begun to develop, and large Tyumen oil has already gone. And so I recognized all the sites, all the houses of culture, which were built in the north of the Tyumen region by our oil workers, builders, gas workers. They became the main venues for concerts. And at some point I was invited to the Tyumen Philharmonic. I faced a dilemma – go to work to the north or go to the philharmonic. As you understand, I chose the latter. We had a wonderful director, Leonid Mechislavovich Zgersky, – he did not have a higher education, but he was an intuitive person of culture and art. I felt people. I hesitated to go or not to go to the philharmonic. I leave him, I take the door handle – he says to me in the back: “Consider, from today you are accepted.”
My department was then called Operational. We were engaged in meetings, wires of actors, laid routes. And my experience of business trips in the north of the Tyumen region served me well, because I already knew how trains go, how airplanes and helicopters fly – and then the connection was difficult in Tyumen. Then there were even seaplanes, which delivered artists to the north of the region. It was very interesting, though not easy: the Tyumen Philharmonic Society then held about 6,000 concerts a year!
– How did you do everything?
– Then, in fact, the Tyumen region included the territory from the Kara Sea to the southern regions. And we managed to keep up everywhere! Then the concert brigades in the village and maintenance of rotational and highway villages. Iosif Kobzon sang at each drilling site – he had four or five concerts. And when his administrators shouted: “Everything, time is up, the helicopter is waiting!” – he waved his hand and said: “No, I will finish the concert for these hard workers”. Worked Lyudmila Senchina, Edita Pyekha, Edward Gil, Valentina Tolkunova. Lev Leshchenko still remembers all our northern cities! Few who did not come to the Tyumen region, and we sent everyone along different routes: “Oil”, “Gas”, “Forest”. The festival was also held – it was called “Days of Soviet Music in the Tyumen Region”. Tikhon Khrennikov came, Mikael Tariverdiev, Jan Frenkel wonderful. He came to my office, it was cold and cold, he put on fur gloves and sat and warmed his hands before the concert. Or David Tukhmanov, whom everyone affectionately called “Dyudy”, – he resorted and also said: “No, here is still the warmest place”.
For example, the group “Architects” worked for us – the head was Yury Davydov, and as a part, among the others, Yury Loza and Valery Syutkin. I gave them a route to conduct, say, 60 concerts. They sought to travel to the major cities of Priobye, the north did not give rest. And I sent them to the farthest points to the Arctic. Ob Bay, Nyda, Gyda – there is no way for deer to get there either. They resisted, screamed and shouted, but rode and worked. And as the pioneers of the north lived, so did these concert brigades. They had to spend the night on mats in schools, stop in bulks and trailers: there were almost no hotels. Today, everyone thanks the glorious discoverers of the Tyumen oil – Salmanov, Ervier. But the artists did no less work servicing the oilmen, gas workers and builders.
As the Philharmonic developed, my department moved to the Concert Hall, and I became the deputy director for concert work. And she no longer scared everyone with her formidable greeting on the phone: “The operational department is listening!”
– What has changed, except the sign on the office?
– A lot has changed! I would say the essence has changed. Now I do tour planning. Previously, we spent a lot of concerts of pop stars. Classical concerts then were not appreciated. There was even such an expression among administrators: when the pianist, violinist, etc. came, the Directorate said to him: “But who do you need ?!” So it was called: “Yes, who do you need?” They were stamped and they did not worked concert. And this concert was called “Day of the press.” But we always tried to make the artist work. We have never had “Days of the Press”. Although, let’s say, you bring a pianist to a building, working dormitory, you open a piano – there were no pianos there.
