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The island of Sakhalin is in
Russia's Far East. It is 7 time zones
away from Moscow and 9 time zones away from New York. In 1997 Ensemble
XXI became the first orchestra for a decade to travel to the
island which is almost the length of New Zealand and home
to Russia's red caviar. On this beautiful island with its pristine
forests, sparkling rivers and lakes filled with fish, the orchestra
found amazingly enthusiastic audiences. One could describe Sakhalin as
"the island of children". Throughout the island the halls were
filled to capacity, with over 60 % of the audience made up of children
and teenagers starved for classical music. On the eve of the
orchestra's tour children were ringing a Moscow Radio station to
express their excitement at the concerts that they were about to hear,
the first in their lives. During the first Ensemble XXI Moscow tour a
love affair between the island and the orchestra began. Ensemble XXI
soon discovered the appalling conditions in which the music teachers and
the students were working. Since then Ensemble XXI has dedicated itself
to assisting the music schools as well as
touring regularly to Sakhalin with new programmes thus giving the
audiences a chance to hear a wide range of music otherwise unavailable
to them. Read one story...
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