Trivia

He studied at the Moscow Choral School and Moscow Conservatory, composition with Yuri Shaporin and piano with Yakov Flier, graduating in 1955.

He wrote music of many genres, including operas such as Lolita, ballets including The Little Humpbacked Horse and Carmen Suite, orchestral works, chamber music and vocal music.

Rodion Shchedrin was a Soviet and Russian composer and pianist.

Shchedrin's early music is tonal and colourfully orchestrated and often includes snatches of folk music, while some later pieces use aleatoric and serial techniques.

His works were performed internationally.

He received the Russian State Prize from Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1992.

He received the USSR State Prize in 1972 for the oratorio "Lenin Is Amongst Us" and the opera "Not Only Is Love" (61, new edition).

He became Honorary Professor of the Beijing Conservatory in 2008.

The premiere of a German version of his opera Lolita was performed as the opening night of the Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden in a production of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden in 2011.

He has written five concertos for orchestra. Zvony (The Chimes), and was premiered by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein as one of the many commissions in honor of the orchestra's 125th anniversary.

From 11 to 14 June 2008, Shchedrin Days took place in Armenia with the participation of Shchedrin and Maya Plisetskaya as honorary guest.

He was married to ballerina Maya Plisetskaya from 1958 until her death in 2015.

He was made a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1989.

He composed a set of 24 Preludes and Fugues after he heard those of Dmitri Shostakovich.

His chamber music included Ancient Melodies of Russian Folk Songs (2007) with the cellist Raphael Wallfisch and himself at the piano, and Meine Zeit, mein Raubtier with tenor Kenneth Tarver and pianist Roland Pontinen who performed it also at the Verbier Festival.[.

Notable is his Polyphonic Notebook.

Invited by Walter Fink, he was the 19th composer to be featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2009.

Among his works are the ballets The Little Humpbacked Horse (1955), Carmen Suite (1973), Anna Karenina (1971, based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy), and Lady with a Lapdog (1985); the operas Not Only Love (1961), and Dead Souls (1976, after Nikolai Gogol's novel); piano concertos, symphonies, chamber, and piano music and other works.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shchedrin has taken advantage of the new opportunities for international travel and musical collaboration, and largely divided his time between Munich and Moscow. He was a former member of the Inter-regional Deputies Group (1989-1991). He was also a citizen of Lithuania and Spain.

The asteroid 4625 is named Shchedrin.