As waves of composers migrated from Russia in the 20th century, they grappled with the complex struggle between their own traditions and those of their adopted homes. Russian Composers Abroad explores the self-identity of these émigrés, especially those who left from the 1970s on, and how aspects of their diasporic identities played out in their music. Elena Dubinets provides a journey through the complexities of identity formation and cultural production under globalization and migration, elucidating sociological perspectives of the post-Soviet world that have caused changes in composers' outlooks, strategies, and rankings. Russian Composers Abroad is an illuminating study of creative ideas that are often shaped by the exigencies of financing and advancement rather than just by the vision of the creators and the demands of the public.
"Russian Composers Abroad: How They Left, Stayed, Returned examines the movement of both Soviet and post-Soviet composers within the greater paradigm of socio-political identities, ones which shifted and morphed, or not, according to geography and circumstance. Connections in and around these inner and outer realities are ones Dubinets takes particular care with; such investigations have pointed r
Catherine Kustanczy
"This weighty 388-page-long musicological work by Elena Dubinets is clearly a work of love. Love for her own country of origin, love for the music, and last but not least, love for the achievements that many of the composers Ms. Dubinets has known personally have reached. . . . Elena Dubinets follows the history, fate, and success of many composers, their initial struggle to adapt to a new and mos
Giorgio Koukl
"This book is far more than an ethnography of the Russian musical diaspora: it investigates the stages of emigration of Russian composers as manifested in the music they actually composed. The wide range of composers and compositions examined makes this volume an excellent addition to the shelf that includes more general histories of 20th- and 21st-century Russian music, such as work by Malcolm Br
