Messiah
as never before Music & Vision 27.11.2003
by Howard Smith
Dublin-born
conductor brings solace to Russian island The
Irish Times By
Dan McLaughlin
The
strongest Maestro
(in Russian) by
Gerard Kimelis
To
Russia with Love.
A
bizarre story from Moscow, by Howard Smith
... of three concerts collectively
titled 'Gennady Rozhdestvensky and His Pupils' attentive Muscovites
heard the sixteen-member Ensemble XXI Moscow ....
Readers' Digest November-December 1999 by Marina Blaganravova
MOZART FOR MOSCOW COURTYARDS
Two young foreign musicians didn't imagine how much bravery their love of music would demand.....
Review of Ensemble XXI Moscow’s performance of the Nordic Premiere of Haydn’s Opera “Orfeo and Euridice” in Ilomantsi, Finland
Helsingin Sanomat (the main Finnish National Daily newspaper with the biggest circulation of any paper in Scandinavia and Nordic Europe) 15.07.1996
DAZZLING
COLORATURA WITH RUSSIAN EMOTIONHaydn’s unknown opera proves itself a surprising masterpiece
Although there are many beautiful wooden Churches in Finland, the
IIomantsi Church one of the most beautiful. It is like a fairy tale.
It created the perfect atmosphere the Opera, Orpheus and Euridice.
With this music the Church celebrated its 200th
anniversary.
Read
more...
The
following article appeared in The Independent on Saturday
12 March 1994
When Moscow snubbed her cosmopolitan group, Lygia O'Riordan went
on hunger strike. Andrew Green reports:
PRIDE AGAINST THE ODDS
A call from the airport, and my meeting with
Lygia O'Riordan was postponed. Back home in Moscow, Ensemble XXI's
principal sponsor, the Progress Bank, was about to pull the
financial plug. As usual, O'Riordan was adding the role of Ms
Fixit to her duties as the conductor of an orchestra whose very
title is a statement of faith in Russia's future.
Read
more....
Izvestia
Internationalism in action. Performance
of Ensemble XXI Moscow just before their tour to England.
THOSE
MAD MUSICIANS by Vera Kolosova
Published by Rossia, the Russian newspaper, circulation
throughout the CIS. Considered to be one of Russia’s most
serious papers. This article appeared in the Spring of 1992.
At the end of our conversation I didn’t ask "where is your home" because the answer was obvious. The daughter of an Irish Diplomat, she has traveled to many countries because of her father’s career. She does not believe in borders between countries but rather in an independence of spirit. No, she does not stress this. She simply lives like this. For her this is the only way to exist. Confident that the 21st century will bring a time when musicians will be able to play together without barriers, she named her orchestra ENSEMBLE XXI. She is a person of the future. I for one hope that such people are responsible for the future.
Still a lot of people consider
Lygia O’Riordan’s ideas to be quite mad. A conductor who could
have worked in the West, a musician with a European cultural
background has come to Moscow to found an international chamber
orchestra.
Read
more...