Quick Facts
Biography
Maxim Dmitrievich Shostakovich (Russian: Макси́м Дми́триевич Шостако́вич; born in Leningrad) is a Russian conductor and pianist. He is the second child of the composer Dmitri Shostakovich and Nina Varzar.
Since 1975, he has conducted and popularised many of his father's lesser-known works.
He was educated at the Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories where he studied with Igor Markevitch and Otto-Werner Muellerbefore becoming chief conductor of the Union Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra. While he was principal conductor of the Moscow Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, he conducted the premiere of his father's 15th Symphony. On 12 April 1981 he defected to West Germany, and then later settled in the United States. After spells conducting the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra he returned to St. Petersburg. In 1992 he made an acclaimed recording of the Myaskovsky Cello Concerto with Julian Lloyd Webber and the London Symphony Orchestra for Philips Classics.
Maxim is the dedicatee and first performer of his father's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major (Op. 102).
He has a son, Dmitri Maximovich Shostakovich (or Dmitri Shostakovich Jr.) who is a pianist.
Maxim Shostakovich has recorded a cycle of his father's 15 symphonies with the Prague Symphony Orchestra for the Czech label, Supraphon.