Denis Mickiewicz

Denis Mickiewicz [pron: mɪtsˈkjɛ.vɪtʃ] (born in 1929) is Professor Emeritus of Russian Literature at Duke University and the founding conductor of the Yale Russian Chorus.

Dr. Mickiewicz was born into a Russian family in Latvia, or possibly Estonia, which emigrated during World War II to Salzburg, Austria. As a boy, his mother taught him to play the guitar and the piano, and he sang in the children’s choir of the Orthodox Cathedral in Riga. In Salzburg, he enrolled in the Mozarteum, and graduated from gymnasium. He served as assistant to the choir conductor of the Orthodox Archbishop’s Church in Salzburg, and played Viennese music, jazz, and Gypsy music in various bands. In 1952, Mickiewicz and his family emigrated to the United States.

Mickiewicz enrolled in the Yale School of Music in 1953, earning a B.A. in Music at Yale University in 1957. He then entered the graduate program in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale, receiving an M.A. and then a Ph.D. from Yale. While still an undergraduate at Yale, he and George Litton of the Yale Russian Club, founded the Yale Russian Chorus, which began as a small group of Russian language students. Over time the Chorus developed a broad repertoire of folk, liturgical, and classical music arranged or transcribed by Mickiewicz. In 1958, with members of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, they performed a concert version of Mikhail Glinka’s opera A Life for the Tsar. By 1963, the group had performed all over the United States, as well as in Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Spain; highlights were performances at Salle Pleyel in Paris, at Carnegie Hall in New York, and at Wigmore Hall in London.. In 1962, the Chorus won first prize at the Radiodiffusion Française Festival International de Chant Choral at Lille. Shortly afterwards, Philips Records invited Mickiewicz and the Chorus to record their repertoire in Paris.

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