"The Soviet Experience" was a fourteen-month-long multidisciplinary festival that took place in Chicago, IL during the 2010/11 season.Spearheaded by Shauna Quill, Executive Director of University of Chicago Presents, the festival was inspired by the Pacifica Quartet's plan to perform all fifteen of Dmitri Shostakovich's string quartets in Chicago, the first time the city hosted the entire cycle.