Rodion Shchedrin
Rodion Shchedrin was a Soviet and Russian composer, pianist, and music educator. Born in Moscow on 16 December 1932 into a family of musicians, he grew up in an intensely musical household: his father, Konstantin Shchedrin, was a violinist, composer, and teacher with exceptional aural memory and perfect pitch. Shchedrin spent many childhood summers in Aleksin, a place he later recalled with particular affection. His first music teacher was his father; in 1941, with assistance from actress Vera Pashennaya, he entered the Central Music School attached to the Moscow Conservatory and also took private piano lessons with M. L. Gekhtman.
During the Second World War, his family was evacuated to Kuibyshev. There he attended a rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony conducted by Samuil Samosud. After returning to Moscow, he resumed his studies at the Central Music School. From 1944 until 1950 he attended the Moscow Choral School, where his father taught music history and theory. Shchedrin then studied at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating with distinction in 1955 in composition under Yuri Shaporin and piano under Yakov Flier. He completed postgraduate studies there in 1959, again under Shaporin.
Shchedrin frequently appeared as a pianist performing his own music. From 1965 to 1969 he taught composition at the Moscow Conservatory; his students included Oleg Galakhov, Boris Getselev, and Georgi Minchev. He later served as chairman of the board of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Composers' Union from 1973 to 1990 and subsequently became its honorary chairman. He was elected to the Berlin Academy of Arts after the merger of its eastern and western academies, and in 2008 he donated to it a large archive of his musical and literary manuscripts.
His output included seven operas, five ballets, three symphonies, fourteen concertos, and numerous chamber, instrumental, vocal, choral, and programmatic works, as well as music for films and theatrical productions. Among his ballets are The Little Humpbacked Horse (1960), Carmen Suite (1967), Anna Karenina (1972), The Seagull (1980), and The Lady with the Dog (1985). His operas include Not Love Alone (1961), Dead Souls (1977), Lolita (1992), The Enchanted Wanderer (2002), Boyarynya Morozova (2006), Lefty (2013), and A Christmas Tale (2015).
His orchestral works include three symphonies, beginning with Symphony No. 1 (1958), and a series of piano concertos composed between 1954 and 2003. Other concertante works include a trumpet concerto, a cello concerto, and orchestral concertos such as Naughty Limericks, Chimes, Old Music of Russian Provincial Circuses, Round Dances, and Four Russian Songs. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1981 and received the Lenin Prize, the USSR State Prize, and two State Prizes of the Russian Federation.
Shchedrin was married to the ballerina Maya Plisetskaya from 1958 until her death in 2015. From 1990 the couple lived in Munich. He died there on 29 August 2025, aged 92.