Composer

In communist Russia, Soviet officials called it an ‘optimistic tragedy’. Shostakovich simply called it his Tenth Symphony. Dark, tense, packed with secret messages and featuring at its centre a terrifying scherzo that might or might not be musical portrait of Stalin himself. Shostakovich’s Tenth is one of the greatest of all 20th-century symphonies, and few living conductors understand it more intimately than RPO Music Director Vasily Petrenko. ‘Shattering’ and ‘thrilling’ were just two of the words that critics used to describe his recording of the Tenth Symphony.

Shostakovich x Beethoven

Royal Festival Hall

Dmitri Shostakovich was an unsurpassed musical chronicler of his life and times, and of the Soviet state’s complicated relationship with artists. Despite being a highly decorated member of the Communist Party, he wrote works that clashed with the state and led to denouncements on multiple occasions. His body of music speaks to the tension of being both celebrated and denigrated by a government that fell short of its own ideals as it embraced paranoia and persecution.

EPSG:4326

Shostakovich: 1906-1975

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Young Georgian pianist Giorgi Gigashvili (born 2000) has quickly made a name for himself on the international concert scene. A major turning point came in 2019 when he won the prestigious Vigo International Piano Competition – with legendary pianist Martha Argerich as jury chair. He was a BBC New Generation Artist 2023–25 and is now nominated for ECHO Rising Stars.

Piano Solo – Giorgi Gigashvili

Konserthuset Stockholm

After bringing Dmitri Shostakovich’s early opera The Nose to life in a wonderfully grotesque staging, Barrie Kosky now turns his attention to a far more radical work by the Russian composer: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, a dark tale of sex and violence featuring one of opera’s most fascinating female characters.

La­dy Mac­beth of Mtsensk

Schiller Theater

Rediscover 20th-century classics that represent landmark moments in The Philadelphia Orchestra’s history! The Orchestra performed the 1922 U.S. premiere of Stravinsky’sThe Rite of Spring, the work that had so scandalized Paris audiences only nine years earlier. In 1934, the Orchestra gave the U.S. premiere of Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto, one of 11 of the composer's works this Orchestra brought to America for the first time. In these concerts, Shostakovich’s witty, irreverent Concerto will be performed by the “astonishing” Seong-Jin Cho, a pianist of “sensitivity, nuance, tremendous fluidity and elegance of style” (Bachtrack). 

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Written in 1891, the year before Dvorak began his sojourn in America, Carnival was second of a three-overture set and was originally titled “Life.” It was played at Carnegie Hall at Dvorak’s introductory concert in America.  The peasant nature of Karelia was deliberate – Sibelius’ intention was to capture the quality of naive, folk-based authenticity. The nationalistic character of the music is evident in each of the four movements extracted which form the Suite.

Sibelius & Shostakovich

Duluth Entertainment Convention Center

Maestro Harada leads an exuberant program that reflects his own journey from Japan to Russia, where he mastered the art of conducting. Akutagawa’s Prima Sinfonia ignites with rhythmic energy, bold brass, and striking contrasts, channeling the spirit of his Russian contemporaries. Shostakovich’s jubilant Festive Overture and deeply powerful Fifth Symphony bookend the concert, culminating in an unforgettable evening of sweeping emotion and vibrant sound.

Shostakovich 5 & Festive

Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center

The formidable Marianna Shirinyan is finally back! This time with Ravel's irresistible Piano Concerto, which offers both magnificent virtuosity, shimmering impressionism and swinging jazz. With Shirinyan in the lead role, Ravel's cornucopia of musical ideas sparkles and sparkles.

Ravel and Shostakovich

The Conservatory Concert Hall

Experience the intensity and emotional depth of two composers profoundly influenced by the tumult of Soviet Russia. Pianist Denis Kozhukhin, hailed as a “firebrand” (Chicago Tribune), dazzles in Rachmaninoff’s exhilarating Piano Concerto No. 4 and Shostakovich’s gripping Symphony No. 4 delivers raw power and emotion.

Rachmaninoff & Shostakovich

Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

The Music Center at Strathmore

Let yourself be swept between beauty and artistic struggle in this Thursday concert, with Alexandra Conunova as the soloist in Britten's Violin Concerto.

Shostakovich & Brabbins

Malmö Concert Hall

Passion, versatility, and uncompromising artistic standards are the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's hallmarks. The orchestra returns to Krannert Center with its music director Vasily Petrenko for a rousing program highlighting the uncompromising excellence of the United Kingdom's most in-demand orchestra. The program's light-hearted opening, Berlioz's Overture to the comedic opera Beatrice and Benedict, contrasts the gravitas of the closing work, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10, considered one of the greatest of all 20th-century symphonies. Vasily Petrenko brings a deep affinity for and love of Shostakovich's music to the podium; his insightful recordings of the composer's complete symphonic output have been lauded for their depth, integrity, musicality, and interpretive intelligence. The RPO welcomes Benjamin Grosvenor, "a genius who has reached the height of his interpretive powers" (Spectator), as soloist in Beethoven's playful Piano Concerto No. 1.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

This dynamic and varied programme begins in Soviet Russia via Shostakovich’s emotionally wrought Violin Sonata and ends in earlier romantic works by Brahms and Schubert.

Maxim Vengerov and Polina Osetinskaya in Recital

Barbican Centre

Guest Concert

Stadthalle am Schloss

Celebrating the 120th Anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich

Music Building and Recital Hall

Young British rising-star pianist Amiri Harewood made his concerto debut as a teenager, and his sweeping programme features pieces from around the world. There are Russian preludes from Rachmaninov, including the famous Alla Marcia, and from Shostakovich including a stately sarabande and glistening fugue. From America, George Walker’s fifth sonata from 2003 condenses the form into a dense five-minute burst. From Nigeria, Joshua Uzoigwe’s rhythmic piece is inspired by a traditional dance to a river deity. Finally, Granados’s seven waltzes capture the essence of Spanish dance in dazzling, rich colours.

Sunday Piano Series: Amiri Harewood

Royal Concert Hall Nottingham

The award-winning Merz Trio, praised for their “stunning virtuosity and ensemble work” (Reading Eagle), is joined by soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon for a performance of Shostakovich’s hauntingly beautiful song cycle, exploring themes of love, longing, and loss. The program opens with Shostakovich’s youthful Piano Trio in C Minor and concludes with Dvořák’s masterful Piano Trio in F Minor, a work that captures the essence of the Romantic spirit.

Merz Trio Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano

 Benjamin Franklin Hall

Beethoven’s explosively exhilarating First Symphony was written in the very last years of the 18th century, when Napoleon was first seizing control of France and setting out to conquer Austria and Italy. The music breathes the air of earth-shaking public events and an intense optimism for the future. Shostakovich composed his colossal Eighth Symphony in the depths of World War II, when the Battle of Stalingrad was raging and the future of the entire world at stake. This wildly dramatic, almost cinematic, music traverses every kind of human feeling from the dark tragedy and struggle of the first movement, through bitter satire and brutal human conflict to despair and finally a vision of a new world of transcendent beauty.

Tragedy and Triumph: Shostakovich Symphony No. 8

Jacobs Music Center

Rebirth & Revolution

Robinson Center

This intimate, thought-provoking program begins with Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor, “Abschieds-Symphonie; Farewell Symphony”—a poignant work that bids farewell with each movement as musicians leave the stage, symbolizing the departing court musicians. Tension simmers and pathos soars in this dramatic Classical gem.

The Unquiet Heart

Memorial University School of Music

Designed to engage listeners of all ages, Orchestral Kaleidoscope invites audiences into a colorful afternoon of musical storytelling, virtuosity, and cultural dialogue—reflecting the season’s theme, Where Our Stories Meet, through works that showcase the orchestra’s full expressive range.

MasterWorks IV: Orchestral kaleidoscope

Zimmermann Symphony Center

Conductor Marcelo Lehninger says "you'll be leaving the performance hall singing the melodies." Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphony No.3 is a must-hear song and this concert.

Romance and Rachmaninoff

DeVos Performance Hall

Benjamin Britten spoke no Russian and Dmitri Shostakovich spoke no English, but they found in each other a kindred spirit, becoming firm friends, supporters of each other’s work and using a sort of broken German as a shared language. Britten’s tribute to his teacher and mentor Frank Bridge uses each variation to loosely sketch a facet of Bridge’s personality, while Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony was not the grand artistic statement Russia expected and instead is a witty, playful and sarcastic work that inevitably led to political trouble. And we are delighted to welcome Jess Gillam to perform Glasslands by Anna Clyne, inspired by the banshee of Irish mythology.

Ulster Orchestra: Kindred Spirits

Ulster Hall

Edward Elgar scored an instant hit with his 1899 Enigma Variations, and he's been captivating new generations with it ever since. Enigma found its way into the films Dunkirk (2017) and The Matrix (1999), as well as the solemn funerals of Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth II.

Ellington + Elgar's Enigma Variations

The Woodruff Arts Center

Subscription Concert

Kurpark Bad Oeynhausen

Konzerthalle, Bad Salzuflen

Detmold University of Music

Stadthalle Gütersloh

Schützenhof city park

Stadtpark Schützenhof Hangül GmbH

Stadttheater Lippstadt

Minden City Theater

Paderhalle Paderborn

Finnish conductor John Storgårds makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with an exhilarating program centered on Beethoven’s monumental Fifth Symphony. Beethoven’s subject wasn’t the individual but the human condition, the fate we heroically create for ourselves, one choice at a time. Has any transition from C minor to C major ever felt more blissful, more fully earned? Less familiar but equally powerful is Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen’s visceral and life-affirming The Rapids of Life, heard in its US premiere. Pianist Seong-Jin Cho and SF Symphony Principal Trumpet Mark Inouye perform Shostakovich’s sprightly and intelligent Piano Concerto No. 1, an underperformed gem that spans the silly and the sublime. Initially conceived as a trumpet concerto, the work still gives that instrument plenty of love: this is a double concerto in all but name.

Beethoven 5 & Seong-Jin Cho

Davies Symphony Hall

BASF-Feierabendhaus

The secret sauce to what makes Dvořák’s G-major String Quintet so delectable is its incorporation of warm, hearty Bohemian folk elements as well as a rich and mighty double bass. While bass with string quartet is a less common chamber music combo, it’s certainly a satisfying choice for this work, giving it a greater, more robust range.

Dvořák & Shostakovich

Walt Disney Concert Hall

There are countless string quartets—both ensembles and works—but saxophone quartets? With this lineup, the MAAT Saxophone Quartet is making a name for itself. As the European Concert Hall Organization's "Rising Star," they will tour throughout Europe in the 2025/26 season. After eight sold-out children's concerts in 2024, they will also return to the Elbphilharmonie with a program that showcases the quartet's diversity, with arrangements ranging from string quartets to piano concertos.

Size Saxophone Quartet

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Chamber Concert No. 3

Town Hall Hall

Faure And Shostakovich

Dorchester Abbey

Klaus Mäkelä's career trajectory is an unprecedented upward trajectory – at not even 30 years old, the Finnish conductor has established a global profile and, as artist in residence for the 2024/25 season, has become a popular regular at the Elbphilharmonie. Now he celebrates his 30th birthday with "his" Oslo Philharmonic, star violinist Lisa Batiashvili, and a truly gifted program.

Oslo Philharmonic / Lisa Batiashvili / Klaus Mäkelä

Local dance students perform to waltzes, tangos, and other traditional dance pieces played by The Syracuse Orchestra.

Kids Dance!

Inspiration Hall

André Raphel Conducts Shostakovich 10 + Midori

Palace Theatre Albany

In 1926, Düsseldorf opened what was then the world's largest planetarium. Exactly 100 years later, we celebrate this with music that reaches as far into the heavens as it does into the depths of human emotion. The spectacular opening is Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, which impressively demonstrates the unimaginable range of musical languages ​​that can span between nostalgic retrospection and passionate anticipation of the future. Edvard Grieg's popular Peer Gynt Suites then take you on an "elegiac expedition" where you witness a sunrise that, since its composition, has confidently been considered the most magnificent example since the birth of mankind. And because Peer Gynt never completely leaves his Norwegian homeland, original sounds from the north resound with Ragnhild Hemsing's Hardanger fiddle. Gordon Hamilton – Green Monday audience favorite – composed a rousing concerto for her, the premiere of which perfectly rounds off the concert.

Peer Gynt Suites

Tonhalle Düsseldorf

Friday concert № 3 »Leningrad Symphony«

Volkshaus Jena

With Joan Tower's new Fanfare as a glorious portico, this program takes us from the tortured shadows of the latest Shostakovich, revealed by Gautier Capuçon's bow, to the irresistible accents of “American” Dvořák.

Orchestre de Paris / Andrés Orozco-Estrada

Philharmonie de Paris

"Fate shuffles the cards – and we play." In the spirit of this Schopenhauer quote, we look forward to the program under the direction of our honorary conductor, Manfred Honeck. It begins with the overture to a musical card game: Tchaikovsky's dramatic setting of Pushkin's poem from 1890 revolves around a countess who, in her youth, was a daring gambler nicknamed "The Queen of Spades" – and who knows a secret about three unbeatable winning cards that prove fatal for a young officer gambling in a casino. Shostakovich also had a great passion for gambling: he was an enthusiastic football fan, maintained contact with the members of his favorite club, and even completed referee training. Perhaps his stadium experiences enabled him to so brilliantly charge, channel, or unleash the masses of sound in his compositions—as in his magnificent Second Cello Concerto from 1966, for which Truls Mørk takes on the role of the charging striker in our performance. 

Manfred Honeck, Truls Mørk

Bamberger Symphoniker

Thursday concert № 5 »Leningrad Symphony«

Bulgarian-American violinist Bella Hristova has won international acclaim for her “expressive nuance and rich tone” (The New York Times). She performs Sergei Prokofiev’s lyrical first violin concerto. Andreia Pinto Correia’s 2018 work Ciprés explores themes of trees and water. The program concludes with Dmitri Shostakovich’s first symphony, an early work revealing the composer’s profound talent.

Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto

Princeton University

Acclaimed for its “sublime, incandescent” playing (Chicago Classical Review), the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam is the 2018 winner of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust award and The Netherlands’ coveted Kersjes Prize. The quartet’s recent projects have included the world premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s opera Only the Sound Remains, a collaboration with director Rosabel Huguet reimagining Beethoven’s Op. 132 String Quartet for children, and the recording and release of the first installment of the complete Tchaikovsky string quartets. Concert highlights include the group’s Australian debuts at the UKARIA Cultural Centre and Canberra International Festival, as well as the performance of John Adams’ Absolute Jest with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.

Dudok Quartet Amsterdam 2026

Northwestern University

Behzod Abduraimov (“the most perfectly accomplished pianist of his generation,” The Independent) is soloist in Tchaikovsky’s mighty Piano Concerto No. 1, full of thunder and lyrical beauty. Gianandrea Noseda conducts Shostakovich’s bracing Fourth Symphony, whose overpowering orchestral forces convey human struggle on an epic scale.

Noseda Conducts Tchaikovsky & Shostakovich

David Geffen Hall

Concerts on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day should belong to the best young artists! The soloists appearing under Roberta Kružík’s baton will be some of our top players: oboist Barbora Trnčíková, French hornist Kateřina Javůrková, and trumpet player Walter Hofbauer. We promise our carefully chosen programme will thaw even the chilliest frost. There is no risk of a hangover; there will be nothing but the pure joy of music.

Czech Philharmonic • New Year’s Concerts

Rudolfinum

Each stopover will introduce you to a different sound world, combining lively rhythms and captivating melodies. Under the direction of conductor Zoe Zeniodi, the musicians will be joined by soprano Sheva Tehoval, the distinguished guest of this festive event. Together, they will perform works with multiple influences, reflecting the richness of the world's musical heritage. A moment of sharing, joy, and escape to experience with family or friends, to start the year with a smile.

New Year's Concert

Opéra Berlioz

Join us for a dazzling New Year’s Eve Gala, a Nottingham tradition for nearly 30 years.

New Year’s Eve Gala 2025: Magic and Enchantment

A sparkling New Year's celebration with Martyn Brabbins and guests! 

With glitter and champagne we celebrate the new year atMalmö Live Concert Halland hearMalmö Symphony Orchestrashine with sparkling virtuosity.  

New Year's Gala 2025

Malmo Live Concert Hall

In a tour of recent Nordic music, this concert offers several examples of composers who were inspired by elements from early modernism and neoclassicism and who at the same time held fast to their Nordic origins.

Both the Swedish Rosenberg and the Norwegian Sæverud and our own Carl Nielsen introduced modernist musical ideas into national romantic-based musical cultures. With Sæverud this is already visible in the titles, which refer to Norwegian folk music, and with Carl Nielsen this is heard through his creation of his own musical language, where he mixes Danish folk tunes and impressionism, of which his work “Pan and Syrinx” is a typical example. 

The Magnificent North

Southern Denmark Conservatory of Music

Hamburg's former General Music Director Simone Young has always championed the works of Austrian composer Franz Schmidt. She traces her fondness for his music back to her years in Vienna, where Schmidt is a staple of the repertoire. In the north, however, Young was the first in a long time to revive Schmidt's monumental oratorio "The Book with Seven Seals." For her guest conducting engagement with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, she now brings Schmidt's rarely heard Second Symphony in E-flat major to the table.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Gautier Capuçon / Simone Young

Thursday Concert No. 4

Under the baton of Euan Shields, Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra and winner of the 2023 Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition, the younger generation of our Hallé family open this concert with Awakening. A musical tapestry, it weaves together the rich and historical sound world of Wales and the vibrant energy of New York City; the two places Katie Jenkins has called home. Commissioned by the Juilliard School for the Juilliard Orchestra’s opening concert of 2024/25, this piece serves as a celebration of the excitement and anticipation of new beginnings. Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is one of his most famous, and one of the greatest and most powerful of twentieth-century orchestral works. It was, supposedly, ‘A Soviet artist’s response to just criticism’. It is now known that this popular symphony was composed as a work of defiance so subtle that no-one realised at the time.

Hallé Youth Orchestra – Shostakovich Symphony No.5

The Bridgewater Hall

Under the baton of Euan Shields, Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra and winner of the 2023 Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition, the younger generation of our Hallé family open this concert with Awakening. A musical tapestry, it weaves together the rich and historical sound world of Wales and the vibrant energy of New York City; the two places Katie Jenkins has called home. Commissioned by the Juilliard School for the Juilliard Orchestra’s opening concert of 2024/25, this piece serves as a celebration of the excitement and anticipation of new beginnings.

Hallé Youth Orchestra

Ready to experience TSO in a new way? Music director José Luis Gomez uncovers the fascinating story behind Dmitri Shostakovich’s most popular symphony, the Fifth, in this new 75-minute format. Do the themes of personal struggle, resilience, and the power of the human spirit remain as relevant today as they did in 1937? Excerpts and commentary will be followed by a complete performance of this symphonic masterpiece.

Underscore: Shostakovich’s Fifth

Linda Ronstadt Music Hall

Alessio Bax makes his TSO debut as the soloist in Beethoven’s monumental Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor”. Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers complete this program built on themes of unrest and power.

Beethoven’s Emperor

BNY Classics showcases unforgettable performances by your Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, featuring timeless masterpieces, thrilling premieres, and renowned guest artists.

Shostakovich's Fifth

Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts

Richard Strauss casts himself as the protagonist in A Hero’s Life, an epic autobiographical tone poem from 1898. Bold and notoriously difficult, the work depicts the hero’s battles, critics, love story, and victories—yet, rather than ending in a blaze of glory, Strauss closes his saga with a serene and reflective retreat as his hero steps away from the world, content with his legacy.

Markus Poschner conducts Strauss' A Hero's Life

Salt Palace Convention Center

Clara Schumann’s Three Romances are wistful and intimate, gracefully opening this concert led by frequent SLSO guest conductor John Storgårds. Haydn’s Cello Concerto, though exceptionally difficult to master, is leisurely and elegant. Cellist Kian Soltani, whose emotional connection with audiences has captivated many, makes his St. Louis debut. Then, a musical kaleidoscope takes shape in Shostakovich’s final symphony, a blend of the composer’s memories, transformed into an epic symphonic memoir.

Shostakovich's 15th

Powell Hall

They’re the most famous four notes in history. “This is how Fate knocks at the door!” is how Beethoven described the opening of his Fifth Symphony, but if that’s all you know of this game-changing masterpiece, you’re in for a wonderful discovery, as conductor András Keller and the Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra unleash the full, electrifying power of Beethoven at the absolute top of his game.

Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra

Cadogan Hall 

The earth is sweating, the poles are melting—and somewhere, a penguin is sitting on packed suitcases. Thousands of animals from all over the world are competing for a ticket on the luxury liner "Arche Boa." Twelve animal finalists will present their stories in a spectacular show. The audience decides: Which animal will be saved, will receive the last QuarTIER on board, and thus be saved from extinction?

1.  Children's concert Arche Boa

Theater Lübeck

Once upon a time… Love Story. Love… a passionate and oh-so-human impulse. The common thread of our destinies. The one for which we live and die, the true driving force of all existence. For centuries, no subject has so inflamed minds as love. The Ensemble Émeraude, formed within the OPRL, explores its various aspects through works by German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Russian composers. The concert is passionately presented by Stéphane Dado, art and music historian and OPRL Project Manager.

Love Story

Philharmonic Hall of Liege

Experience unforgettable performances by your Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, featuring timeless masterpieces, thrilling premieres, and renowned guest artists.

Carnegie Hall Preview

Czech Chamber Music Society • Alinde Quintet

This program presents the season's motto "Planet Shostakovich" for the first time in chamber music. It focuses on Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev – two internationally acclaimed Russian composers who created masterful works in the tension between artistic independence and political pressure. Their relationship was characterized by rivalry as well as mutual inspiration. The selected works explore different creative phases and contexts: A "Moderato" by Shostakovich for cello and piano from the 1930s, rediscovered in 1986, is followed by "Five Pieces" based on stage and film scores – a suite in miniature format for violin, cello, and piano, arranged by Levon Atovmyan. Prokofiev is represented by his Violin Sonata in F minor, a piece of intimate form but with an epic content of symphonic grandeur, as well as selected scenes from his admired ballet music "Romeo and Juliet," arranged for viola and piano by Vadim Borisovsky, who, as a brilliant interpreter and arranger, popularized the music of both composers. /JN

Culinary Sunday Matinee № 3 

Hotel & Restaurant Schwarzer Bär

Kronberg Academy

Cologne Philharmonie

Fresh off her Carnegie Hall debut, pianist Zlata Chochieva presents Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s dark and stormy Piano Concerto No. 20. Conductor Joshua Weilerstein leads Dmitri Shostakovich’s powerful Eleventh Symphony, a profound reflection on the Russian Revolution of 1905. Canadian composer Samy Moussa’s Adgilis Deda evokes a sense of maternal protection.

Mozart & Shostakovich 11

Orpheum

If there is one 20th-century composer on whom everyone can agree, then Sergei Rachmaninoff has a great chance. He inspires perhaps more people today than ever before, especially his two middle piano concertos, which are high on classical music streaming lists.
Russian-Armenian pianist Eva Gevorgyan, born in 2004, will breathe new life into the romantic sounds of the second. Chief conductor Nicholas Milton will preface the concert with a contemporary work by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz – and place the symphony by another important Russian composer at the end. With "The Emergence of Personality," the subtitle of his Fifth, Dmitri Shostakovich achieved his temporary rehabilitation under Stalin in the 1930s.

Resistance

Stadthalle Göttingen

“More for a Caruso than a Paganini,” Korngold said, is how he wrote his Violin Concerto. This means: a bold embrace of lyrical richness. Renaud Capuçon, with his rich, velvety violin tone, is the ideal interpreter, and Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony provides a stark counterpoint. This symphony is like a history lesson. Its title, “The Year 1905,” refers to Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg and the massacre of demonstrating workers in front of the Tsar’s palace. The tension, the confrontation between the people and the authorities, the grief for the dead are vividly audible here. Revolutionary songs, workers’ anthems, protest songs—this is the material from which Shostakovich crafts a powerfully evocative symphony—one that resonates just as strongly with its year of composition, 1957, with the Hungarian Uprising that had just been brutally suppressed, as it does with our own time. With this performance, Alain Altinoglu and the hr Symphony Orchestra continue their recording of all Shostakovich symphonies this season. Also physically demanding, energetic, and featuring a powerful percussion section, is "Alaraph," a work by Focus artist Unsuk Chin, being heard for the first time in Germany. The title comes from one of the so-called "heartbeat stars," whose pulsation resembles the heart rate in an electrocardiogram.

Shostakovich 11

Alte Oper

Chief conductor Klaus Mäkelä conducts the work Dmitri Shostakovich described as his requiem: Symphony No. 8, written during the Second World War and under Stalin’s reign of terror.

Klaus Mäkelä

Oslo Concert Hall

There is pathos and passion from the first bar of Brahms's first piano concerto. A powerful timpani roll sets off a great symphonic drama, and during the concert both soloist and orchestra face great trials. But at the same time they share the same desire to perform the dazzlingly beautiful music.

Elim Chan & Shostakovich

DR Koncerthuset

A fascinating journey through 20th-century music awaits us for this concert, which begins with the disturbing Tombeau de Nelligan by Quebec composer Jacques Hétu. Commissioned a little over 30 years ago by the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the piece pays tribute to the poet Émile Nelligan, who profoundly influenced Quebec literature.

Rachmaninov's Second Concerto

Grand Théâtre de Québec

The beloved Danish String Quartet returns to the Twin Cities, following their hugely successful performance of the Beethoven String Quartet Cycle in 2021. As The New York Times put it: “The Danish play as if they have abandoned their individual personalities entirely to serve the collective—as if they were joined on a single instrument, armed with four bows.”

Danish String Quartet

Saint Anthony Park United Church of Christ

This Welsh pianist may not be a household name in America, but his semi-annual performances on the series are highly-anticipated by pianophiles and music lovers alike. Williams brings his virtuosic technique and soulful phrasing in a wide-ranging program.

Llŷr Williams, piano Union College

Union College

Immerse yourself in an enchanting evening of music, featuring a stirring new guitar concerto by composer Karen LeFrak, Miami Concerto, performed by the incomparable Sharon Isbin (Christel DeHaan Legacy Artist). The piece demonstrates a captivating journey with vibrant Latin rhythms and lush melodies showcasing the guitar’s full range of beauty and power.

Composer

Dmitri Shostakovich

Events

Upcoming events

Mar 19, 2025 - Feb 25, 2026

360° No. 3 · Jenaer Philharmonie

Jun 27, 2025 - Apr 11, 2026

Klangzeit · Elbphilharmonie

Sep 21, 2025 - May 10, 2026

Chamber Concert / Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra · Elbphilharmonie

Jan 22 - Jun 16, 2026

Subscription Concert · Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie

Jan 31 - Mar 14, 2026

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk · Komische Oper Berlin

Past events

Feb 3, 2026

Shostakovich x Beethoven · Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Feb 1, 2026

Shostakovich: 1906-1975 · Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

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