Ashkenazy's Shostakovich Tributes at the Sydney Opera House
Vladimir Ashkenazy is to conduct the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in a Shostakovich concert series at the Sydney Opera House. Dmitri Shostakovich was a courageous Soviet composer whose subversive orchestral scores were openly condemned by Stalin's regime. Ashkenazy loves and reveres Shostakovich, and even met the maestro on one occasion. Ashkenazy said, "He composed whether the Soviets will allow it to be played or not.…