Baroque Soloists

The Moscow Baroque Soloists, founded by cellist Andrey Spiridonov in 1997, is an ensemble of historically informed performance of Baroque and Classicism music. For many years, the musicians have been doing research in libraries and archives, collecting musical works by Austrian, Italian, German, French, and Russian composers to offer a new insight into historical and cultural processes in Europe between the 17th and the early 19th century. 

The ensemble appears at the Moscow Conservatory, the Chamber Hall of the Moscow Philharmonic, Gonzago Theater in Arkhangelskoye, Evangelical Lutheran Peter and Paul Cathedral, Russian State Library, Pokrovskye Vorota cultural centre, Engineering Building of the Tretyakov Gallery, Ilya Glazunov Gallery and other popular venues. <>

Since 1999, the ensemble has regularly participated in the summer editions of Sheremetyevo Seasons at the Ostankino estate, giving authentic performances of Le devin du village by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Livietta e Tracollo by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi among other pieces. The company was also involved in the premiere of Miserere by Giuseppe Sarti at the Sheremetev Theater in Ostankino and at the Tsaritsyno Opera House broadcast by the Kultura TV channel, as well as in the staged production of Temple of Minerva oratorio by Francis Hopkinson staged in the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin. Moreover, the ensemble members have found and premiered works of Luigi Madonis, Domenico dall’Oglio, Anton Eberl, Katerina Maier-Schiatti, Jean-Baptiste Cardon, Lev Gurilyov, Danila Kashin, Alexander Alyabyev, and other composers. 

In their programmes, the musicians combine various genres of art while focusing on the composers’ personalities in historical and cultural context of their times. The ensemble’s major programs include “Musical Atlas of Orpheus”, “Russian Musical Archive”, “He Captured Paris, He Founded the Lyceum”, “Ausonian Games”, “Gallery of Musical Rarities”, “Unfinished Journey, or the Northern Odyssey of Kapellmeister Sarti”, “The Secrets of the Bologna Academy”, “Russian Mozarteum”, “Music of the Lefortovo Sloboda”, “Odoevsky, or Russian Faust”, “Joseph and His Brothers: The St. Petersburg Portrait of Haydn”, to mention but a few. The company has also recorded programmes “The Northern Parnassus”, “Sebastianon, or To the origins of the Russian myth of Bach”, “1812. Heroes and Contemporaries”, “The Musical Chronicle of the Russian Court”, “The Origins of Russian Romanticism” and “Vivaldi. Russian Trace”. 

The Moscow Baroque Soloists have toured throughout Russia, as well as in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Canada, and the USA. In 2004, they appeared in the production of The Falcon by Bortnyansky in Helsinki. 

The founder and artistic director of the ensemble Andrey Spiridonov graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 1981 majoring in cello (with Ivan Monighetti and Natalia Shakhovskaya) and composition (with Tikhon Khrennikov). At various times he was a soloist of different early music ensembles, such as Baroque, Academy of Early Music, Orfarion, Lad, etc. Presently, Andrey Spiridonov is a Professor heading String, Wind and Percussion Instruments Department of the Faculty of Historical and Contemporary Performing Arts of the Moscow Conservatory.