Shostakovich’s Eighth

Beauty in Darkness

📍 This event takes place at Powell Hall

Saturday, Nov 14, 2026, 7:30pm View Subscriptions Sunday, Nov 15, 2026, 3:00pm View Subscriptions

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Program

David Afkham, conductor
St. Louis Symphony Chorus | Erin Freeman, director

Felix Mendelssohn Psalm 114 (When Israel out of Egypt Came), Op. 51
Igor Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms
Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony No. 8

About this Concert

Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony oscillates between the brutality of war and the indomitable spark of humanity. Though the composer described the work as a wartime requiem and the score is infused with deep sadness, he also said of it that “life is beautiful. All that is dark and depressing will disappear, depart, and the beautiful will reign.” The St. Louis Symphony Chorus also presents beauty with visionary musical psalm settings by Felix Mendelssohn and Igor Stravinsky in this first performance of their 50th anniversary season.

- In his own words about the Eighth Symphony, Shostakovich spoke of the symphony as a requiem for all those who had died in or survived the horrors of World War II: “We could talk about it, we could cry openly, cry for our lost ones. People stopped fearing tears…. It suffocated me too. I had to write about it.”
- Stravinsky sought to compose for the orchestra and the choir on equal terms in his Symphony of Psalms and to blur the lines between secular and religious ideas in the music despite using Biblical text as inspiration.
- Winner of the prestigious Donatella Flick Conducting Competition at age 22, David Afkham has been the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Spanish National Orchestra and Chorus since 2019. The Chicago Tribune has said of his conducting, “every interpretative choice was well motivated and grounded in an ability to maintain orchestral control that was exacting, yet never rigid.”

Artists

Meet the people that make the music.

David Afkham

Conductor

St. Louis Symphony Chorus

Erin Freeman, director

Musicians of the SLSO

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Through dark storms, we reach peace in Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony and the Symphony Chorus’ expression of visionary works by Mendelssohn and Stravinsky.

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Shostakovich’s Eighth

Beauty in Darkness

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Program

About this Concert

A few things to know

Artists

David Afkham

St. Louis Symphony Chorus

Musicians of the SLSO

Plan Your Visit

Pictures at an Exhibition

Dvořák’s Eighth

Brahms’ Third

Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances

Playlist: Symphony Happy Hour

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