On Sept. 22, WKND ran a piece entitled “No More Nyets.” I had asked the editorial board to assign us a reporter to gain publicity for the upcoming Yale Russian Chorus concert (I am the current conductor), which they gladly did. However, after the piece went to press I realized the necessity of correcting some facts and comments which I had shared with the reporter for WKND, some of which resulted in a misrepresentation of our relationship to my predecessor, Mark Bailey. To correct one key error: under Mark Bailey the group did in fact hold concerts, and although contact with the alumni was diminished it was not entirely lost. In fact, Bailey’s 1996 recording with the YRC was featured on the New York Times critics’ choice list. This fact alone complicates the assertion that his leadership in the chorus “had negative effects on the group in terms of their prestige.” More importantly, I think I did not make it clear in my interviews with WKND that Professor Mark Bailey retired of his own accord, rather than being pushed out by members of the group. The Yale Russian Chorus as a whole and I personally hold him in high esteem: he has given the group twenty-one years of his life, which will not soon be forgotten. I write this piece not in criticism of WKND, but rather in an effort to correct my own failing, which was not to make clear in my interviews our deep and abiding respect for the man who, due to my neglect, appeared in the article as a sort of antagonist, rather than the wonderful former artistic director that he is.

— Stephan Sveshnikov