Contest History

International Vocal Contest  named after Zara Dolukhanova "Amber Nightingale" is the only competition in Russia with a program which is  entirely composed only of the works of chamber vocal repertoire: romances, vocal cycles.

The founder  and organizer of the contest, the President of the contets- People's Artist of Russia is  Valery Seyfullievich Aliev. Thanks  to the suggestion of  V. Aliev and the wise decision of the star of the world opera- Irina Konstantinovna Arkhipova, who supported the proposal of the young singer, in 1992, the contest of chamber singing "Amber Nightingale" began its flight, separated from the famous national contest  of  vocalists named after M.I Glinka.

Since 2007, the contest of chamber singing "Amber Nightingale" began to bear the name of the outstanding famous chamber singer Zary Alexandrovna Dolukhanova.
Сonsent of Zara Dolukhanova to awarding her name to the competition is a recognition of the high merits of the competition in the development of chamber singing. Since the same year, the contest, at the suggestion of Zara Dolukhanova, to the category "professional performers" was added the nomination "young performers", in which students of music schools and colleges could take part.  Since 2016 in the category of "young performers" admitted students of music schools in four age groups (from 9 years).

The contest "Amber Nightingale" is held every two years. Throughout the history of the contest, he twice missed the calendar period: in 1998 - due to a default in the country, in 2012 - due to financial and organizational difficulties.

According to its conditions, the Kaliningrad vocal contest remains one of the most difficult. According to the plan, the contest should promote the chamber vocal creativity of the composers of Russia, return from the nonexistence of the names of many forgotten or rarely performed Russian composers, draw attention to the performance of vocal cycles, the ability to sing ancient music and folk songs. All this is reflected in the program of the competition.

The list of winners of the competition 
includes singers from Russia, Finland, France, Australia, USA, Lithuania, Japan, Ukraine and other countries, many of whom work on the best world scenes (Mariinsky Theater, Bolshoi Theater, Paris Opera, Helsinki Opera, Moscow State Philharmonic Society , Novosibirsk opera, etc.)

Especial  features of the competition: high professional level of the jury, high complexity of the program, extremely objective judgeship, which is noted every time by the press and participants. It is no accident that the newspaper "Soviet Culture" wrote: "... The competition  was unprecedented for our time, honest judgeship. Aliyev picked the highest professionals, who did not entangled in the mafia web ... ". The jury consists of professors and singers from Russia, USA, England, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Belarus and other countries