About Sofia Gubaidulina

Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, (Russian София Асгатовна Губайдулина) (born 24 October 1931) is a russian-tatar composer. Gubaidulina was born in Chistopol, in the Tatar Republic. She studied composition and piano at the Kazan Conservatory, graduating in 1954. In Moscow she undertook further studies at the Conservatory with Nikolay Peyko until 1959, and then with Shebalin until 1963. During her studies in soviet russia, her music was labeled "irresponsible" for its exploration of alternate tunings. She was supported, however, by Dmitri Shostakovich, who in evaluating her final examination encouraged her to continue down her "mistaken path". In the mid-1970s Gubaidulina founded Astreja, a folk-instrument improvisation group with fellow composers Victor Suslin and Vyacheslav Artyomov. In the early 1980s Gubaidulina became better known abroad through Gidon Kremer's championing of her violin concerto Offertorium. She later composed a homage to T. S. Eliot, using the text from the poet's spiritual masterpiece Four Quartets. In 2000 Sofia Gubaidulina, along with Tan Dun, Osvaldo Golijov, and Wolfgang Rihm, was commissioned by the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart project to write a piece for the Passion 2000 project in commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach. Her contribution was the Johannes-Passion. In 2002 she followed this by the Johannes-Ostern ("Easter according to John"), commissioned by Hannover Rundfunk. The two works together form a "diptych" on the death and resurrection of Christ, her largest work to date. She was thrilled that her work The Light at the End followed Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in the 2005 proms. Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations. In Erwartung, she combines percussion and saxophone quartet. She has written pieces for Japanese koto and Western orchestra. In the early 1980s, she began to use the Fibonacci sequence as a way of structuring the form of the work. The sequence was especially appealing because it provides a basis for composition while still allowing the form to "breathe". It plays a prominent role in such pieces as Perception, Im Anfang war der Rhythmus, Quasi hoketus and the symphony Stimmen... Verstummen...). Later the Lucas and Evangelist series, sequences derived from that of Fibonacci, were added to her repertoire. Gubaidulina has received the Prix de Monaco (1987), the Premio Franco Abbiato (1991), the Heidelberger Künstlerinnenpreis (1991), the Russian State Prize (1992), the SpohrPreis (1995), the Praemium Imperiale in Japan (1998), the Sonning Prize in Denmark (1999), the Polar Music Prize in Sweden (2002), the Great Distinguished Service Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2002) and the Living Composer Prize of the Cannes Classical Awards in 2003. In 2004, she was elected as a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.