Rodion Shchedrin

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Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin (Russian: Родион Константинович Щедрин; born December 16, 1932) is a Russian composer. He has been the chairman of the Union of Russian Composers since 1973.

He was born in Moscow and studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Yuri Shaporin and Nikolai Myaskovsky. Since 1958, he has been married to the great ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, who is 7 years his senior.

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

Among his works are the ballets The Little Hump-backed Horse (1955), Carmen (Carmen-Suite, 1967, based on the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet), Anna Karenina (1971, 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.