Penza, 20 May 2016. PenzaNews. Yuri Belonogov’s Express Band performed a number of jazz melodies during the open-air session of the 6th Jazz May music festival that set off in Penza in the evening of Friday, May 20.

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During the 40-minute session, they also performed jazz renditions of various famous melodies, such as “The Mother Bear’s Lullaby” from the Soviet cartoon “Umka,” “All That She Wants” by Ace of Base, and the chart hit “Sunny” by Boney M.

The Express-Band was accompanied by Ekaterina Bizina, winner of the Russian children’s “Factor X” contest replica “Golos. Deti.”

They were followed by Anna Lukshina’s quartet from Nizhny Novgorod.

She asked the audience to come closer to the stage and form an impromptu choir of state officials, deputies, civil activists, journalists and people of culture, including Yuri Krivov, deputy chairman of the Penza region government.

Together with the singer, they performed the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin, which everybody were able to learn in advance.

In an answer to a question by a PenzaNews reporter, Yuri Krivov said he decided to join the impromptu choir immediately when he learned about it.

“It’s a good thing. Indeed. It’s the evening, sunny, nice city, good country, kind people, beautiful music. Why not get together and sing for a while?” he said.

According to the deputy chairman of the regional government, people learned to sing as a choir in the USSR schools, which was “the correct history.”

“By reanimating these feelings of togetherness, we must remember these strings, and when Russian people gather together […] somewhere in a nice company, sadly, few of us can sing one song from beginning to the end. […] Sadly, the state hymn is not an exception either,” Yuri Krivov noted.

The choir song on Yubileynaya square elicited a round of applause.

After the choir, Anna Lukshina stayed on the stage for around an hour with jazz compositions, including a jazz rendition of a Russian national lullaby.

Also, the list of the day’s performers featured Emanuele Cisi from Italy, one of the festival’s headliners, who accompanied Anna Lukshina in her perfomance of “Take Five.”

At one moment, the singer expressed her surprise over the people assembling by the stage – which turned out to be a dance flashmob at the open-air platform set up by 20 people.

This coincided with the opening of the official paid program in the “Penza” cinema and concert hall, as people began gathering at the entrance.