Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin

Russian composer Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin (b. 1932). As well as a distinguished compositional career (for which he was made a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1989 and received the Russian State Prize from President Boris Yeltsin in 1992), Shchedrin is himself a virtuoso pianist and took the piano part in person for the premieres of the first three of his five piano concertos. Following the collapse of the Soviet regime, Shchedrin has taken advantage of the new opportunities for international travel and musical collaboration, and now largely divides his time between Munich and Moscow.