Yesterday, while talking to Libby Huebner, press officer for Camerata Pacifica, I brought up the fact that the group’s forthcoming performance of Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony, in the arrangement by Viktor Derevianko, will be the California premiere. Of course, being a fanatic of Shostakovich and this symphony in particular, I’ll be there.

This May 2026 performance will be only the fifth in the Western Hemisphere. It was preceded by the following:

June 2000: Austin Chamber Music Festival (Western Hemisphere premiere)
April 2006: Seattle Chamber Players (in commemoration of the centennial of Shostakovich’s birth)
May 2013: Members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (Canadian premiere)
May 2019: Played by Sergey Khachatryan, Alicia Weilerstein, Colin Currie, and others at the Kennedy Center