The history of Golosa, the University of Chicago's new Russian folk choir, extends much further into the past than its foundation in the summer of 1997 would indicate. The songs as we have them today are the descendents of songs heard in the earliest of years of the twentieth century in a small village in northern Russia; and those songs in turn were merely the latest incarnation of music many years older still.

In 1919, Aleksander Kresling brought many hundreds of folk songs from his native Russia to Freiburg, Germany, though he had not yet written any of them down. Then in 1929, he taught some songs to a few of his Russian students, and the Russian Choir of Freiburg was born.

In 1996, I travelled to Freiburg to study German and while there had the opportunity to sing with this famous choir for one semester. During this time, I not only made many friends but learned a great many songs. I brought them all with me when I moved to Chicago in fall of 1996, but didn't have anyone to share them with yet.

In the summer of 1997 Loren Shevitz and I called together many of the musically talented people we had met during the University's spring production of "Jesus Christ Superstar," as well as other friends and friends-of-friends and thus began a new chapter in the history of Kresling's songs. The group didn't have a name yet, but eventually became Golosá, Russian for 'voices' and also 'melodies.'

In the fall of 1997 a vigorous recruiting campaign brought many more interested and talented people to the group, and we now boast a membership of over twenty singers. These new members have contributed their own new songs and new ideas and together we have created something which is at once traditional and uniquely our own. We hope that you will have a chance to hear us sing and that you too will become enamored of this music as we have!

       --Noel Taylor, Director