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One of those sleepless nights again.

The Don Cossack Choir Serge Jaroff was a men's chorus of exiled Russian Cossacks founded in 1921 by Serge Jaroff and conducted for almost sixty years by him.

In 1921 it was with these very Russian refugees that Serge Jaroff set about forming a choir in the Turkish internment camp Çilingir, near Constantinopel. The Cossacks began to accompany their own church services, and later left for the Greek island of Lemnos. To improve the situation, they started giving open-air concerts, which were especially popular with the British.

The Cossack lieutenant, Serge Jaroff worked hard on his choir's repertoire, until a splendid opportunity presented itself. Troops were to be shipped from Çilingir to the Bulgarian town of Burgas and on their behalf the Russian envoy suggested that Jaroff and his choir should be attached to the church.

Although the parish was too poor to support a choir, the offer was accepted and the members of the choir were obliged to find work on the side.

Help came from a representative of the League of Nations, who took an interest in the choir. He brought the singers in contact with the director of a concert agency. At an audition in the director's office the singers exceeded all expectations-and a historic decision was made.

But the offer of a concert in the Vienna Hofburg on 4 July 1923 put everything else in the shadows. After this amazingly successful concert in the Austrian capital, the director predicted that the choir would not sing once, but a thousand times. In fact, it would eventually perform in excess of 10.000 concerts.

The choir toured Australia in 1926, leaving behind its lead tenor, Savva Kamaralli, who decided to make his home there.

They travelled for the first time to the U.S.A in 1930 were they became in a mass ceremony the United States citizenship in 1936.

World War IIWith World War II looming, the choir found a new home in the U.S.A. and Sol Hurok became manager of the choir.

In 1985, Otto Hofner sought contact with Michael Minsky. Conforming to Jaroff's wishes, Hofner wished to organize a tour with Nicolai Gedda as soloist and Michael Minsky as conductor.


Unique Voices
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The Don Cossack Choir was renowned for both the quality of the tenors and especially for the depth and resonance of the low basses, particularly Pyotr Mihailik. It was reported that he could reach the bottom E of the piano with little difficulty. This unique blend of voices provided a different experience for most western audiences, increasing the popularity of the choir greatly. Whereas most western vocal composers tend to focus on the upper spectrum of the voice, many eastern composers have been noted to write music displaying the power of the lower voices.