'Raduga' means 'Rainbow' in the Russian language. The Raduga-Ensemble was founded on May 5th,1997 by the Korean/Uzbekian violinist and music pedagogue Alla Kim. Founder and artistic leader Alla Kim lived with her dream of leading an all women orchestra of her own already for more than 15 years. In Uzbekistan she did not get the state permission to realise her dream When she came to Holland in 1991 she did not know how to start, so several trials failed. Nevertheless she did not give up and finally at the end of 1996 she found the right way, the right people and the right moment to start.
The main target of the Raduga-Ensemble is to make people aware of the large part of almost unknown cultural heritage i.e. music written by women. That is why the Raduga Ensemble decided to improve on recognition of professional women in music and to ameliorate their image. To realize this the Ensemble ranks the music of women composers on a prominent place in its programme and priority is given to women orchestra conductors at first performances. In spite of this priority, the musicians of the Raduga-Ensemble make sure that the quality of music is not depending on gender, that is why the music of male composers, male guest-conductors and soloists will also be programmed.
In each of the concerts 50% of the programme will be music composed by women. Some concerts exist only of music written by women composers.
The Raduga-Ensemble is a professional and highly qualified string orchestra, which has - due to its purely female structure - undoubtly her very own caracteristic sound and her self-willed identity. The Ensemble is a unique chamber orchestra in the Netherlands, because it exists of only women musicians. The Ensemble counts 21 musicians of 11 different nationalities.
Besides the Raduga-Ensemble there are only a very few comparable all women orchestras in the world. The only ones we know are the 'Women's Chamber Orchestra of Moscow' and the 'Women's Philharmonic Orchestra' in San Fransisco. Other women orchestras are invited to announce themselves through website or e-mail.