Tatyana Petrova is a genuine national singer whose performing conveys the sincerity of Russian folk singing and breathes new life into a broad folklore and dialectal scope of songs represented in her repertoire.

The longstanding performing activity of Tatyana Petrova has formed a wide range of her admirers who irrespective of their age or social status adore the singer for her gift of expressing the very essence of the Russian national character. It is her credo that singing is painstaking work; Tatyana Petrova believes that she must not spare her voice. She has always sung without a microphone, but with all her vocal and spiritual power, putting her whole soul into every song.

Tatyana Petrova was born on September 19, 1957 in Bulanash settlement of Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) region. The love of national culture was brought up in her from an early age. The little Tanya was always surrounded with songs, tales and legends. Everyone in her family enjoyed singing. The grandma used to teach the girl: “Do not ever sing a bad song to good people!” Since then the singer has followed the advice.

The fifteen year-old Tatyana passed the contest for the State Ural Folk Choir (1972-1974) and sang forgotten grandma’s songs in it. Then she moved to Moscow to study at a music school, then at the folk singing department of Ippolitov-Ivanov College for Music Teachers (1974-1978), the Gnesins Music Teachers’ Training Institute (1978-1986) and the post-graduate courses (1986-1988). When studying at the college she also worked in Dmitry Pokrovsky Folk Music Ensemble, and in 1978 she became a soloist of “Mosconcert”. Since 1986 along with concert performing Tatyana Petrova has taught at the solo folk singing department of the Gnesins Russian Academy.

Tatyana Yuryevna believes she was very lucky, as in due time she was noticed by the now late Metropolitan Ioann of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, who comforted and encouraged her with his spiritual words. Foreseeing the calling of the young singer, he said to her: ‘You should be called a national singer, not an artiste. You are not a performer: you take to heart every song you are singing. You are destined not to entertain people, but to give them solace”. The motto of her every concert is as follows: “The harder the times the tenderer are the songs”. When listening to Tatyana Petrova, whether in big metropolitan concert halls or in godforsaken village clubs, people rejoice and cry at her songs, never leaving them cold.

Tatyana Petrova has contributed greatly to preservation, dissemination and introduction into everyday life of music folklore, including playing, dancing and ritual songs, as well as cultural traditions of solo singing of various regions of Russia. The intensive touring activity and profound inner self-exactingness helped her to become one of the most illustrious female singers of Russia. Following the traditions of Nadezhda Pleviskaya, Anastasia Vyaltseva, Lidia Ruslanova, and Agrafena Glinkina, she brings original and up-to-date sounding into the songs performed.

Along with folk songs her repertoire includes spiritual Orthodox singing, classical vocalises with orchestra, romances, and poetic cycles of Yesenin, Tsvetayeva, Tyutchev, Merezhkovsky, Rubtsov, and Klyuev set to the music of Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Rakhmaninov, and Sviridov.

Tatyana Petrova revives “miraculous, enchanting songs”, as she puts it herself, the songs which unfortunately “do not take that place in our self-consciousness which they truly deserve”.

But she goes on singing them today, constantly perfecting her mastery on these unique surges of the people’s soul. Over a thousand songs are on Tatyana Petrova’s repertoire, beloved by people in various corners of Russia, including quite remote places, where she tirelessly tours.

Sources:
    mmv.ru
    peoples.ru
    lgz.ru