Young Musicians Performed Along Their Senior Colleagues at the 2020 Spasskaya Tower Festival Show

The Military Band and Honor Guard of the 154 Preobrazhensky Regiment, permanent participant of the Spasskaya Tower Festival, was given the honor to be the first to stage their individual performance on Sobornaya Square of the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces. To the sounds of Semyon Tchernetsky’s ‘Salute to the Motherland’ march, Lev Knipper’s ‘Cavalry of the Steppes’ (lyrics by v. Gusev) and ‘Vasilisa’ composition (author is unknown), the Honor Guard Unit members demonstrated their precise arms drilling skills with the Simonov semi-automatic carbines.

Then the audiences witnessed a performance staged by the youngest participants of the evening show. The honor to step on Sobornaya Square was given to the Combined Band of the Moscow State Budget School N. 1770, participant of the Spasskaya Tower Children and Youth Wind Band Festival. Young boys and girls performed Valery Khalilov ‘General Miloradovich’ and ‘Platz’ marches as well as several medlies of the war years and Leonid Utesov’s songs.

The Central Band of the Russian Navy named after Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov came next. Their evening repertoire featured the Fleet March (A. Ivanenko), Slavic March (P. Tchaikovsky), All Hands on Deck gallop (F. Akimov) and Varyag song (A. Turishev).

The Combined Band of the Russian Airborne Forces performing together with the Song and Dance Company of the Russian Airborne Forces and Honor Guard Cadet Unit of the Ryazan Airborne Command Higher School named after Army General Margelov were among the debutants of the Thirteenth Spasskaya Tower Festival. These highly professional artists built their show program both around the service-related compositions and Russian popular songs’ medley. Finally, to finish strong, the performers brought out to Sobornaya Square a giant Airborne Forces flag covering more than 1000 sq.m. It was the same flag used by the paratroopers of the Russian Airborne Forces for the jump to make it into the Russian Book of Records. 26.76 meters wide and 40.05 meters long, the canvas covers 1071,74 sq.m. in total. The jump was facilitated by Tekhnodynamica Holding of the Rostec State Corporation that launched a skydiving series with giant flags in summer of 2020.