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 Brown and Richard Taruskin. . . . Highly recommended.
- W. E. Grim, Strayer University (Choice) 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 resonance to the current, perilous displacements and journeys being made by so very many. Utilizing a myriad of references and quotations from a variety of sources (including composers Boris Filanovsky, Anton Batagov, Serge Newski and Dmitri Kourliandski) Dubinets examines the 20th and 21st-century diasporic musical landscapes through wonderfully contextualized lenses of history, culture, finance, socio-religious beliefs and practices, and old and current politics, as well as the ways in which identity can and does change according to a combination of these factors.
- Catherine Kustanczy (The Opera Queen) 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 mostly-unknown ambiente. She does so in a sincere and partly hard way, describing the noble but also selfish aspects of each of her subjects.
- Giorgio Koukl (EarRelevant) In an age of widespread movements of people, this important book about the fates of composers who left Russia for various reasons is also relevant to the problems of emigration and repatriation from and to many other countries. . . . Elena Dubinets's monograph deserves close reading by scholars of contemporary Russian music, and the attention of all those concerned with the theory and reality of emigration.
- Arnold McMillin (Slavonic and East European Review)
