Celebrating Shostakovich's legacy: 2025 sees the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death
Dmitri Shostakovich has long been established as one of the most important and performed composers of the 20th century, whose works have profoundly shaped the landscape of classical music. Across the 2024/25 and 2025/26 seasons, to mark the 50th anniversary of his death on 9 August 1975, Boosey & Hawkes | Sikorski launches a Shostakovich Resource Pack and "Beyond the baton" video series.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) is a towering figure in 20th-century music, with his music characterised by powerful sense of mockery and irony mixed with grandeur and despair, and absolute mastery of large-scale forms. His 15 symphonies, 15 string quartets, operas, and chamber music not only capture the tumultuous spirit of his time but also express a deeply personal and enduring vision, with his works still resonating with audiences today.
Highlights already in the diary from across the first of the two anniversary seasons include:
• Over 800 European performances of Shostakovich’s works already in the diary across the 2024/ 25 season.
• Shostakovich Festival in Leipzig, centred at the Gewandhaus and headed by the world-famous Gewandhausorchester led by Andris Nelsons and Anna Rakitina, encompassing opera, orchestral, and chamber, including cycles of Shostakovich’s 15 symphonies and complete string quartets (May 2025).
• Productions of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in Barcelona, Frankfurt, Prague, Düsseldorf, and Leipzig.
• Complete performances of the 15 string quartets by the Carducci Quartet at the Barbican, London and by the Jerusalem Quartet at the Tonhalle, Zurich.
In the fifty years since his passing, Shostakovich’s music has only grown in relevance and importance, displaying a balance between public expectation and personal expression, with works that are both a mirror of his era, and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. As publishers of his works, Boosey & Hawkes | Sikorski are pleased to share a special set of resources to celebrate this anniversary. The Shostakovich Resource Pack includes a selection of logos and graphics to celebrate the anniversary year, as well as images and texts that can be used in publicity materials. We encourage you to use these in relation to performances and events during the anniversary seasons.
In addition to these resources, find out more about the anniversary on our Shostakovich webpage, and look out for our forthcoming "Beyond the Baton" video series, in discussion with world-famous conductors about their experiences conducting works from the catalogue of this monumental composer.
Have you got performances, features, or releases planned to celebrate the Shostakovich anniversary year? If so, we’d love to hear about these and explore ways to collaborate on publicity. For more information or to discuss opportunities, get in touch by emailing [email protected].
#shostakovich2025 #shostakovich50
About Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes, a Concord company, is the world’s leading publisher of contemporary classical music. Its blue-chip catalogue of 20th-century masters includes Bartók, Bernstein, Britten, Copland, Prokofieff, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Strauss and Stravinsky alongside an eminent front list of composers that includes John Adams, Unsuk Chin, Anna Clyne, Brett Dean, Detlev Glanert, Osvaldo Golijov, HK Gruber, Karl Jenkins, Elena Kats-Chernin, Magnus Lindberg, James MacMillan, Steve Reich, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Eric Whitacre.
> www.boosey.com
About Sikorski
Founded in 1935 and initially focusing on dance and light music, Sikorski Music Publishers is today one of the most important music publishers in the German-speaking world. Thanks to agreements signed with Soviet institutions at the end of the 1950s, the publishing group has since represented the works of the great Soviet and Russian composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich, Serge Prokofieff and Aram Khachaturian, in many Western countries.
About Concord Music Publishing
Concord Music Publishing is a global, independent music publisher offering bespoke creative support from its A&R, Synchronization and Marketing teams and diligent administration by its in-house Copyright, Licensing, Income Tracking and Royalty departments. Based in Nashville with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Berlin, Auckland and Melbourne, Concord Music Publishing owns or administers more than 800,000 copyrighted musical works. Spanning nearly two centuries of song, through a vast array of genres and territories, Concord represents the world’s most celebrated songwriters, composers and lyricists.
> www.concord.com
Press Contacts:
David Allenby
VP Publicity & Marketing, Boosey & Hawkes
[email protected]
Adam West
Publicity & Media Associate, Boosey & Hawkes
[email protected]
Shostakovich 2025