Welcome to “Don Kosaken Chor Wanja Hlibka”
25 years have passed away since the world’ s most famoust choir finished the last concert in Paris with a thundering applause. The audience was full of enthusiasm
but the hearts of the choir members were filled with melancholy because they had to realize that this definitive would be the choir’s end under the leadership of his founder and conductor Serge Jaroff.
Some of the older soloists have travelled more than 40 years with Serge Jaroff through the world and now they questioned themselves: should be this the end of all?
12 years Wanja Hlibka was a member of the choir. It was an exciting time and he wanted that it would never had come to an end.
Serge Jaroff did know at this time that his son Alexeij never thought to carry on the choir. For that reason Serge Jaroff and the choir agreed to turn over the responsibility to the youngest of all soloists, Wanja Hlibka. But first, Wanja was a soloist and did not consider himself to conduct a choir exclusively.
Beyond that it was a great burden which he would put on his shoulder because the audience would compare him with the high musical quality of Serge Jaroff.
Serge Jaroff passed away 1985 in his adopted country USA. The right to carry the name Don Cossak Choir he transfered some months before his death to Gastspieldirektion
Otto Hofner, today led by Eberhard Bauer.
After the death of Serge Jaroff a lot of agents and ensembles grasped at the world famous name Don Cossak and they didn’t hesitate to bring Jaroff’s name in relationship with their groups. This circumstance led to a complete irritation by the audience. Because of the existance of so many ensembles Otto Hofner could not work for a successful tour for the Don Cossak Choir. Besides over many years there existed a complete wrong picture of the ability of the Original Choir because the qualityof these ensembles could not be compared in any way with the world famous Don Cossak Choir Serge Jaroff.
This fact and the feeling to correspond with Serge Jaroff’s desire to carry on with the choir, Wanja Hlibka and George Tymczenko, who was also for a long time soloist of the Original Choir, started in 1991 a new beginning with the Don Cossak Soloists.
In 2001 after triumphant success of this ensemble Otto Hofner transfered the name
Don Cossak Choir to Wanja Hlibka. Hofner was deeply convinced to have found in
Wanja Hlibka a worthy and legitimate successor of Serge Jaroff and he was sure in an authentic continuation of the Original Choir.