San Diego Symphony and Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare announce release of Shostakovich Symphony No. 7 on Delos, available exclusively on Apple Music Classical starting tomorrow, June 26

Worldwide digital release follows on Aug 28; CD on Sep 11

(June 2026) — Marking 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 follow 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, honored as the 2026 “Impresario of the Year” by Musical America, 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.”

Charles Adriaenssen, the Founder and President of Outhere Music, says of the new partnership:

“I’m delighted to launch the collaboration between our flagship American label, Delos, and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra with Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony. Rafael Payare leads the orchestra with astonishing intensity, mobilizing the talent of each section in a mesmerizing live performance of this highly symbolic work. The splendid acoustics of the recently renovated Jacobs Music Center also greatly contribute to a unique experience. We are keen to develop this partnership with Maestro Payare, the Orchestra, and this wonderful hall, and delighted to be partnering with Apple Music Classical to bring these extraordinary moments to a worldwide audience.”

Apple Music Classical’s Jonathan Gruber comments:

“This stunning recording of Shostakovich’s Seventh captures a defining moment for the San Diego Symphony and Maestro Rafael Payare. We’re delighted to partner with them, and Delos, to share exclusively this thrilling performance with a global audience. Apple Music Classical invites listeners to experience the brilliant sound and exquisite detail of the Jacobs Music Center, in the highest audio quality, from the very best seats in the house.”

The San Diego sound and a monumental work

The San Diego Symphony played its first concert in 1910 and now comprises 82 full-time musicians. In his seven years with the SDSO, Payare – whose contract was recently extended through the 2028–29 season – has worked to shape what a headline in The Wall Street Journal called “The San Diego Symphony’s Splendid New Sound.” The sub-headline of the same article read: “The orchestra and its conductor, rising star Rafael Payare, have returned to the Jacobs Music Center, a former movie palace whose acoustic shortcomings were recently rectified in a renovation that allows the ensemble’s artistry to shine.” Payare has expanded the orchestra’s concert repertoire through a combination of new commissions – most recently from two-season Composer-in-Residence Jimmy López – and the large, dramatic works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in which Payare is a noted authority. The conductor continues his devoted survey of Shostakovich, Mahler, and Bruckner symphonies, while also showcasing a wide range of other masterpieces including Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. In addition, the orchestra is firmly grounded in its community, with its education and community programs serving more than 65,000 students, families, educators, military service members, and nonprofit partners each year.

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 in C major, nicknamed the “Leningrad” Symphony, premiered on March 5, 1942. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941, the composer was living and raising a young family in Leningrad, his birthplace, and he composed the first movement of the Seventh Symphony between the time of the invasion and the end of August, just days before the Germans arrived at the outskirts of his city. In another two weeks he had finished the second movement, and yet another two weeks saw the completion of the third. But on October 1, the composer and his family were ordered to evacuate; their plane left in the midst of a bombardment.

Shostakovich completed the remainder of the work by the end of the year 650 miles away, in a cramped apartment surrounded by his displaced family. The symphony was first played in Leningrad on August 9, 1942, almost a year into the 872-day siege that was to claim between 1.5 and 2 million lives. Many of the performers were old and frail, some were soldiers fighting on the front to defend their city, and most were starving. In a show of defiance, the performance was broadcast on loudspeakers throughout the city. Even in the West, the work soon became a symbol of resistance to totalitarianism, after Shostakovich made a microfilm of the score and sent it to New York, where Arturo Toscanini conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a broadcast performance on July 19, 1942.  A stylized image of the composer donning a fire warden’s helmet against the burning ruins of the city appeared at the same time on the cover of Time magazine with the caption, “Fireman Shostakovich: Amid bombs burning in Leningrad he heard the chords of victory.” The epic work, which lasts between 70 and 80 minutes in performance, is still often played at Leningrad Cemetery, where half a million victims of the siege are buried. Yet the composer made it clear – as a friend of his related to biographer Elizabeth Wilson – that the work was also a broader statement about “all forms of terror, slavery, and the bondage of the spirit.”

The music of Shostakovich has long been a major focus for Payare, both with the San Diego Symphony and as a guest conductor. This summer, for the opening concert of the Rady Shell season that coincides with the “Leningrad” Symphony release, Payare leads the SDSO in an all-Russian program that begins with Shostakovich’s Festive Overture (June 26), and in November they will perform Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony back at the Jacobs Music Center (Nov 14 & 15). Their 2022 recording of Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony, “The Year 1905,” was described as “a mandatory purchase,” in which “the ferocity unleashed by Payare and his San Diego players is really visceral, in-your-gut stuff” (Fanfare magazine) while Gramophone magazine wrote that the recording is “right up there with the best we have.” This past February, the conductor made his debut with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducting Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, and earlier this month performed the “Leningrad” Symphony with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.

About the San Diego Symphony

The San Diego Symphony stands among the nation’s leading orchestras and serves as a dynamic cultural ambassador for the United States and the San Diego region. Led by President and Chief Executive Officer Martha Gilmer and Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare, its 82 internationally distinguished musicians bring artistry of the highest caliber to audiences at home and abroad. Globally connected and firmly grounded in its community, the Symphony’s artistic life is anchored by two iconic venues: The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, a striking open air performance space on the San Diego waterfront, and Jacobs Music Center, a historic theater renovated to become a premiere concert hall and architectural landmark. Together, these halls have transformed the cultural landscape of downtown San Diego and established distinctive homes for the Symphony’s year-round work. Guided by its mission of Changing Lives Through Music, the Symphony’s community programs serve more than 65,000 students, families, educators, military service members, and nonprofit partners each year.

About Apple Music Classical

Apple Music Classical is the world’s leading classical music app. Launched in March 2023, Apple Music Classical makes it easier to find any recording in the world’s largest classical music catalog of over six million tracks with fully optimized search built specifically for classical, while offering the highest audio quality available. With high-resolution lossless and immersive Spatial Audio, listeners can experience classical favorites in a whole new way. Expertly curated playlists and insightful composer biographies as well as the addition of over 50,000 booklets featuring in-depth liner notes, translations, plus the only global classical music chart and more, make Apple Music Classical the best place for classical music lovers. Apple Music subscribers can enjoy Apple Music Classical at no additional cost.

About Delos

Delos is the flagship U.S. label of the Outhere Music Group. A beacon for American composers and musicians since its foundation by Amelia Haygood in 1973, this historic West Coast classical label continued to thrive under the expert guidance of pianist Carol Rosenberger. Following its 50th anniversary, the artistic direction of Delos has been overseen by Charles Adriaenssen, who has revitalized this prestigious label whilst retaining its focus on American artists, ensembles and repertoires. With over 700 recordings and a roster that has expanded to include international talent, young artists and contemporary music, Delos has achieved true international recognition.

Advance music, physical copies and additional information on all releases from Outhere are available upon request.

About Outhere Music

One of the world’s largest independent classical music production and recording groups, Outhere Music (OH Music) produces and distributes its recordings all over the world. They range from early to contemporary music, by way of jazz and world music. With a clear focus on making an impactful cultural contribution, OH Music emphasizes production quality, strong ties with the artists and scrupulous attention to the realization of each project. It proactively embraces new forms of distribution and engagement, targeting a wide variety of audiences. Alpha Classics, Delos, Analekta, Arcana, Channel Classics, Linn Records, and Fuga Libera represent the group’s best-known labels; their catalogues encompass eclectic repertoires and artists of international stature. Ricercar, Phi, and Ramée, the group’s specialist labels, have strong individual identities and offer outstanding, more specific musical experiences. The Outhere Music group was founded in 2004 by Charles Adriaenssen and has offices in Brussels and Paris, with partners in London, Milan, the Netherlands, the US, Montreal and Mexico.

High-resolution photos are available here.

San Diego Symphony and Rafael Payare

June 26
Rady Shell
Rafael Payare, conductor
Stefan Jackiw, violin
SHOSTAKOVICH: Festive Overture, Op. 96
PROKOFIEV: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64