Maxim Shostakovich

b. 1938 (Leningrad)

Maxim Shostakovich (born May 10, 1938, in Leningrad) is a Soviet, American, and Russian conductor and pianist. He is the son of composer Dmitri Shostakovich.

He studied piano at the Central Music School before entering the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with Yakov Flier. At his entrance examination, he performed his father’s Second Piano Concerto. At the conservatory, he became interested in conducting and studied first with Nikolai Rabinovich and Alexander Gauk, then with Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

In 1963, he became assistant principal conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1966, he worked with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra and the Big Symphony Orchestra of All-Union Radio; with the latter, he conducted the premiere of his father’s Fifteenth Symphony in 1974. From 1971 to 1981, he led the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra. He made his international conducting debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in 1968, and toured the United States with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra the following year. From 1979, he also worked as an opera conductor, conducting his father’s The Nose and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.

From 1983 to 1985, Shostakovich was principal conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, followed by the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 1991. He returned to perform in Russia in 1994 and moved back there with his family three years later, settling in Pavlovsk near St. Petersburg.

His recordings include his father’s complete symphonies with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, recordings of individual symphonies with other orchestras, and both of his father’s piano concertos. Shostakovich was named Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1978. He received the Tsarskoye Selo Art Prize in 2008 and a letter of appreciation from the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg in 2009 for his contribution to the city’s culture and arts.

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