Carpenter Center celebrates Russian musical legend

When Dimitri Shostakovich died in 1975, his was the foremost musical voice in a Soviet Union locked in a seemingly interminable cold war with the West.

On Sunday, a concert at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center commemorating the 90th anniversary of his birth was kicked off with a personal letter from President Bill Clinton praising the man and his work.

Clinton's letter spoke of music's ability to bridge cultural gaps and he cited the work of Shostakovich as an example of this.

An American president's praise of an artist whose work was wholly tailored to the Soviet aesthetic was a measure of how much the world has changed since Shostakovich passed away more than two decades ago.

Sunday's concert at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center capped a weekend of consideration and celebration of Shostakovich which included a Saturday lecture by Indiana University's Professor Hamick Brown and a question and answer session with the compose r's widow Madame Irina Shostakovich on Sunday.

Before the concert, Madame Shostakovich answered questions via an interpreter regarding her husband's work and showed film clips of him as well, said C. Elliot Collier, the Carpenter Center's director of development.

Collier said the composer's widow charmed the festival's producers during a luncheon last week.

"She was very gracious," he said. "She has a wonderful sense of humor, although I think she was a little embarrassed by all the attention."

During a pause in the concert, Madame Shostakovich did seem a bit uneasy in the spotlight as she received a tea pot as a gift from the School of the Arts.

The festival's artistic director, CSULB professor emeritus Julien Musafia, is a recognized authority on Shostakovich and his work, having performed the Western World debut of the composer's "24 Preludes and Fugues" in 1968, and the US premiere of "Seven Romances on the Words of A. Blok" at New York's Carnegie Hall with Galina Vischnevskaya, to whom the work was dedicated to.

Musafia, an internationally renowned pianist, played portions of both works Sunday afternoon, sharing the stage with Richard Carpenter and artists from Germany, Russia and the Ukraine.

Collier estimates that between 700-800 people attended Sunday's concert.