Other composers featured in the festival's concerts are Arvo P‹rt, Valentin Silvestrov, Giya Kancheli, Valentin Bibik, and Franghiz Ali-Zadeh. Works by Shostakovich himself are also included in the program, in order to show how his influence was felt among these more contemporary composers.
The program January 24-27 features chamber and solo music at the Juilliard Theatre, including a number of New York and U.S. premieres. The festival's concluding performance, on January 28, features Reinbert de Leeuw leading the Juilliard Symphony in a program that includes Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15 and Gubaidulina's Stimmen. . . verstummen.
The January 25 performance will be preceded by a panel discussion on music in the late-Soviet era, featuring Shostakovich biographer Laurel Fay, clarinetist Charles Neidich, and Eleanor Sutter, a foreign service officer who lived in the Soviet Union and helped export the music of Soviet composers.
All Focus! Festival events are free of charge, but tickets are required, and are available at the Juilliard box office at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza.