"Obviously this type of band is not as popular as it once was, but all the 100 military bands are still kept quite busy," explained Bortkevitch. "Russia is a big place after all." Bortkevitch admits, however, that the band has had to adapt its repertoire somewhat in recent years. Instead of performing solely military tunes and traditional Russian numbers, the band is no longer averse to bursting into a Beatles track, and even modern rock n' roll gets a Russian military facelift on occasion.
For its inaugural tour of Taiwan, the band only dispatched a 24-member platoon. Back home in Mother Russia, however, the band makes full use of it's complement of over 120 full-time members whenever it performs.
"We have a couple of female vocalists and several male ones, but the contract for this series of concerts was for men only, so we had to leave the women at home," said Bortkevitch. "But we don't mind as we can still perform a wide range of music without them." Although it is a female-less ensemble that has blown into Taiwan this week, Colonel Veprintsev still plans to maintain discipline within the ranks and keep listeners on their toes by treating local audiences to a very mixed bag of tunes.
The band will be performing pieces ranging from rousing Russian Army marching numbers, such as Grenadier, The Saber Dance and Missing the Motherland, to more sedate tunes like O Sole Mio and an interesting piece entitled Song in the Style of Edith Piaf.
It's also rumored that the starched-dress-uniform wearing members of the band might also burst into big-band-style rock n' roll.
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