Press Release
For Immediate Release:
January 9, 2006
NEC and Pianist Tatyana Dudochkin Celebrate Shostakovich Centennial with Array of Stellar Performers, Student Ensembles, February 12
Composer’s Son Maxim to Guest Conduct Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
Tatyana Dudochkin, Chair of the NEC Preparatory School piano faculty, has invited an array of stellar NEC musicians and guests to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), February 12 at 7 p.m. in NEC’s Jordan Hall.
Dudochkin, who studied at the St. Petersburg and Kiev conservatories, has since 1991 turned her annual NEC recitals into concerts celebrating Russian and former Soviet bloc composers’ anniversaries. Calling on friends and colleagues from NEC and around the world, she has masterminded events so popular that one year an extra performance had to be scheduled to accommodate the crowds.
This year’s concert honors one of the most important composers of the 20th Century, renowned particularly for his symphonies and string quartets. Born in St. Petersburg, Dmitri Shostakovich was a child prodigy in piano and composition. His genius received early public recognition and his career flourished until he ran afoul of Josef Stalin over his opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. For the rest of his life, his relationship with the Communist regime was tense and he was once more denounced for “formalist” music in 1948. Although he made accommodation with the Soviets, it is still a matter of controversy just how extensive or sincere was his acquiescence. Clearly the political pressure influenced Shostakovich’s musical idiom—resulting in a compositional language that was markedly conservative compared to that which his contemporaries outside Russia were employing. However, biographer Laurel Fay concludes in her Grove Dictionary article on Shostakovich that "amid the conflicting pressures of official requirements, the mass suffering of his fellow countrymen, and his personal ideals of humanitarian and public service, he succeeded in forging a musical language of colossal emotional power."
On the February 12 concert, NEC's Youth Philharmonic Orchestra will perform the Fifth Symphony under the baton of its regular leader, Benjamin Zander. The composer's son, Maxim Shostakovich, will step in to conduct the First Piano Concerto, Op. 35, with soloist Alexander Korsantia of the NEC piano faculty. Also on the program is the Concertino for Two Pianos, Op. 94, with Dudochkin and Sergey Schepkin, of the Prep piano faculty. Then, Dudochkin will accompany her daughter, soprano Yelena Dudochkin, in a rediscovered suite of songs, Pictures of the Past, Op. 109 (1960). These pieces are settings of satirical poems by Sasha Chorny and were withheld from performance during Shostakovich's lifetime. Music from the film The Gadfly will also be performed by a unison chorus of violins, directed by NEC Preparatory School strings chair Magdalena Suchecka Richter. WGBH-FM’s Cathy Fuller hosts.
Tickets are $20 and $15; $5 off for seniors; 1 free ticket with NEC i.d. Tickets will be available through the NEC Box Office starting January 23.
For more information, call the NEC Concert Line at (617) 585-1122 or visit NEC on the web at http://www.newenglandconservatory.edu/jordanhall/faq.html
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.
The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.
NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.
NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by more than two hundred stations throughout the United States.