Árstíðir

The first cosmonaut in space

“Sergei Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky were good friends of Evgenia,” says our smiling guide, “they came here a lot.” We are standing in the office of the late Evgenia Gnesina, founder and former director of The Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow. Next to us is a piano that Rachmaninoff brought to the school. On an old black and white photo, taken in the same office, we see Evgenia shaking hands with Yuri Gagarin, the first cosmonaut in space.

We are invited as special guests at the school that has instructed many of the Russia’s finest musicians, and been at the heart of Russia’s cultural history for the last century. Our guide points to another photograph: the famous russian actress Olga Knipper Chekhova – married to the late Anton Chekhov.

We are shown around the school which is literally bursting with talent. Everywhere we come across students that are happy to perform for us the pieces they are working on at the moment.

The finale is a meeting with the school choir in the building’s classy auditorium, where we are treated to a 20 minute choir extravaganza that simply blows us away. When asked to sing something in Icelandic we humbly climb the stage and work our way through a few Icelandic choir pieces as well as our own six voice harmony composition “Ekkert Þrái.”