Composer Grigory Ponomarenko: biography, features of creativity and interesting facts

Grigory Ponomarenko is a composer who left a huge legacy after his sudden departure. In Russia, for sure, there is not a single person who has never heard this name, let alone songs based on music composed by a genius. In 2016, Grigory Fedorovich would have turned 95 years old, but fate decreed otherwise - he did not live to be a little 75. However, his compositions are still alive - they are loved not only in our country, but also abroad.

Biography

The future people's artist of the USSR and the great composer was born in the village of Morovsk in Ukraine into a peasant family. The boy’s abilities and sincere interest in music showed up in his childhood. When he was 5 years old, he secretly from his uncle, who was a famous musical master-nugget, played instruments that accidentally fell into his hands. And at the age of 6 he hit the villagers, who gathered for a gathering, with his daring playing the button accordion. This happened when his uncle, Maxim Terentyevich, decided to take a break after working with his neighbors. The boy learned musical instruments at the age of eight when he sang in a church choir.

Of course, the zeal for music did not go unnoticed, and his uncle took his nephew to his family in the city of Zaporozhye, where in 1933 little Grisha became a student of professional accordion player Alexander Kinebas. At the age of fourteen, a teenager is accepted as a musician in the city House of Pioneers. While working there, he often had to accompany tourists arriving to see the sights of Zaporozhye, and once, noticing the boy’s talent, the head of the schoolchildren’s detachment from Kiev suggested the accordion player to move to the Ukrainian capital.

In Kiev

This city has long attracted young Gregory, and he immediately agreed. Arriving at the place, Grigory Ponomarenko got a job in the jazz orchestra as an accordionist. And here his gift did not go unnoticed, and his unusual abilities were appreciated by the musician of the Ukrainian Border Troops Song and Dance Ensemble, after which the boy was auditioned by the artistic director Semyon Semenovich Shkolnik. Having shown outstanding musical data, Gregory was accepted into the ensemble.

First songs

Grigory Ponomarenko worked in this field for many years - until 1949. Over the years, many works have been created. It was here that he wrote his first songs. Musicians can read the notes of Grigory Ponomarenko to songs such as “Horsemen Passed Through a Wide Street,” written in 1938, “Death for Death,” composed three years later by others.

Together with the ensemble, Grigory Ponomarenko toured, often along the western borders of the country, with him the composer went through the whole war. Defending the honor and independence of the country, he distinguished himself, so he was assigned to the awards: in his arsenal, two medals and one order.

Music director

After working in the ensemble, Grigory Ponomarenko, whose biography is so eventful, worked for two years as a solo player in the Osipov Folk Orchestra, it was in Moscow. But his true vocation was still singing. Therefore, in 1952, already in Kuibyshev, he had the opportunity to take the place of musical director of the Volga folk choir thanks to his acquaintance with the outstanding choirmaster Miloslavov. Here, his outstanding organizational skills were revealed, and he wrote our beloved, wonderful songs.

To the poetry of the poet V. G. Alferov, the composer showed the world “Ivushka” (the one that is green leaning over the river), and it was written in 1957. Co-authored with V.P. Burygin, was born in 1959, "Oh, Volga River." Further, in the same year, the composer wrote “Young Agronomist” with V. Bokov. Starting from this period, a joint program with Bokov for the Orenburg Folk Choir is being prepared for a whole year. It was at this time that his famous song by Grigory Fedorovich “Orenburg Downy Shawl” appeared.

By 1961, the composer had created more than 60 songs - this rich experience was embodied in the first song collection.

Volgograd

Since 1963, for ten years, Grigory Fedorovich has been living in Volgograd and is the head of the People’s Choir in the Palace of Culture at the Tractor Plant. Here he meets his poetess Margarita Agashina. Their joint work was fruitful - the first song entitled “What was, was” was sounded on All-Union Radio. This happened in 1964, and the legendary Lyudmila Zykina became the performer. During this period, many songs were written that glorified the name of the composer not only throughout the country, but also far beyond its borders. Songs such as “Give me a handkerchief”, “And where can I get such a song” and other people were sung by entire nations.

A stay in Volgograd gave an occasion to a talented composer to pay closer attention to the work of the great Russian poet Sergei Yesenin. Musical compositions created at this time are a real treasure of Russian culture: “I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry”, “Golden grove dissuaded”, “Here it is stupid happiness” and many others. The first performers of Ponomarenko’s songs were K. Shulzhenko, L. Zykina, I. Kobzon, L. Leshchenko and others.

Other forms

In 1971, the composer plunged into work on creating music for the films “Stepmother”, “Russian Field”, “Fatherless”, filmed on the basis of the Moscow film studio. Seven years later, he writes music for the play based on the play by A. Sofronov “Hurricane”, where the favorite was many beloved E. Bystritskaya. At the same film studio, a film was shot about the composer's work, entitled “Where can I get such a song”.

Ponomarenko’s extraordinary talent manifested itself in works of a different format - he wrote 5 operettas, music for the choir of spiritual orientation “Vespers”, oratorios for mixed choir and orchestra, concerts for button accordion, pieces for orchestra of folk instruments, quartets.

Kuban hospitality

In 1972, Grigory Fedorovich was invited by the first secretary of the Kraycom of Krasnodar Zolotukhin to the festival "Kuban Musical Spring". The Kuban received the composer very cordially, he liked this prosperous, hospitable land and in the same year at the end of the summer Ponomarenko felt himself, as they say, a local composer. It was in the Kuban that many beautiful songs appeared, written in a single creative impulse with the Kuban poets.

His songs about the Kuban land were received with great reverence by a famous person - the leader of the Russian song choir, People's Artist of the USSR - Kutuzov and immediately became part of the collective repertoire. In the capital of the Kuban, Krasnodar, Ponomarenko created a cycle of songs based on Blok’s poems, continued to work on Yesenin’s poems — these songs are in Kobzon’s repertoire. The following works on the words of T. Golub, O. Bergolts, G. Gerogiev, N. Dorizo ​​and others have long since become the heart of the spiritual life of our compatriots: “Do not wake the cranes of the widows of Russia”, “But I only now understand”, “Song to the native land” , "Krasnodar street Red."

Composer Grigory Ponomarenko, whose biography and work is the property of our country, tragically died in a car accident on January 7, 1996. But his works continue to live. For example, in 2010, 641 compositions created by this ingenious man were performed all over the world.