About the Chorus

Slavyanka Chorus is an a cappella chorus based in San Francisco with a mission to:

Bring music from the varied choral traditions of Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Serbia, and other locales in Eastern Europe to American audiences
Share the cultural history behind these traditions
Contribute to intercultural understanding between East and West through the special language of choral music

Founded in 1979 during the Cold War, the Chorus believes that when there are severe differences between Russia and America, artists have a particular responsibility to keep threads of human connection alive between the people of our different world regions.

We first toured the USSR in 1986 and again in 1989. We've also participated in a wide variety of 'people-to-people' and 'choral exchange' concerts with USSR choruses, and performed for Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev during his San Francisco visit in 1990. In both 1986 and 1990, we won the honor of performing at the Western Regional Convention of the American Choral Directors' Association, where we received standing ovations.

For the first 34 years of our existence, we were a men's chorus. Since 2013, however, we've been a chorus with dedicated Mixed, Women's, and Men's Chorus repertoires.

Since June 2012, we've been led by Artistic Director Irina Shachneva. Under her direction, we sponsored the first San Francisco Russian Choral Music Festival in 2014, and in 2015 gave performances of Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil and toured the Boston metro area. In 2016, we were the only American chorus invited to help celebrate the 150th anniversary of Moscow's Tchaikovsky Conservatory; we sang with several outstanding Russian choirs and received standing ovations from enthusiastic audiences in Moscow, Dubna, Novgorod, and St. Petersburg (at the Glinka Cappella).

We typically present 2-3 concert series per year across the Bay Area, and often sing at local cultural events like San Francisco's Slavic Festival and the Fort Ross Festival.