San Diego Symphony & Rafael Payare announce release of Shostakovich Symphony No. 7 on Delos
Jun 25, 2026Marking their first recording with Delos/Outhere Music (OH Music), the San Diego Symphony (SDSO) and Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare announce the release of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad,” recorded live in May 2025 in the recently renovated Jacobs Music Center and representing the first release to highlight the enhanced acoustics of the celebrated venue. The album will be available exclusively on Apple Music Classical for two months beginning Friday, June 26, coinciding with the opening night of the SDSO summer season at their acclaimed Rady Shell venue on the San Diego waterfront, where Payare and the orchestra perform an all-Russian program that opens with Shostakovich’s Festive Overture. The worldwide digital release of the album follows on August 28, and CDs will be available for purchase starting September 11.
Payare comments:
“There are works that test an orchestra not only in size or stamina, but in its ability to hold a vast musical and emotional landscape together over time. Shostakovich’s Seventh is one of those works. It demands power, certainly, but also patience, control, and the capacity to sustain tension across an immense arc. These are qualities I feel the San Diego Symphony can bring to it in a very compelling way. And in Jacobs Music Center, with its extraordinary acoustical richness and clarity, we have the kind of space that allows a work of this scale to speak with its full force and depth.
“I feel a very deep connection to Shostakovich’s music. It expresses brutality, oppression, and human resilience in a way that still feels painfully current, but what has always moved me is the extraordinary depth beneath the surface. In his music, there is often a sense of something withheld; as if behind the power and immediacy there is another voice, more private and more difficult to name. That tension, between what is said openly and what remains hidden, is part of what makes this music so powerful, and why it continues to reveal something new each time you return to it.”
Martha Gilmer, the President and CEO of the San Diego Symphony, adds:
“We are so excited to mark this milestone in our partnership with Outhere Music and its Delos label, along with the initial release on Apple Music Classical. Our conversations have reinforced a shared commitment to the highest standards of recording. Having listened to both the performance and the finished recording, I could not be more pleased with the result and the opportunities it creates for future recordings. It is so important for a wider audience to hear our orchestra in the newly renovated Jacobs Music Center. The artistry of our musicians and the leadership of Rafael Payare are a powerful combination, and I am happy that listeners around the world will now have the opportunity to experience it for themselves.”
Learn more here.
