Obituary: Composer Sofia Gubaidulina Passes Away at 93
By Afton Markay(Photo credit: Bodil Maroni Jensen)
Composer Sofia Gubaidulina passed away on March 13, at the age of 93.
Gubaidulina was born on Oct. 24, 1931, in Chistopol in the Tatar Republic of Russia. She studied composition and piano at the Kazan Conservatory and graduated in 1954. At the beginning of her career she faced a number of repressive measures and restrictions imposed by Soviet cultural policy. After many of her works found their way into Western concert program in the early 1980s, she decided, like many other Russian composers, to emigrate to Germany.
At the 2000 European Music Festival in Stuttgart, her “St. John Passion” was given its world premiere by Natalia Korneva, Viktor Lutsiuk, Fedor Mozhaev, Genady Bezzubenkov, the Saint Petersburg Chamber Choir (Nikolai Kornev), the Choir of the Mariinsky Theatre Saint Petersburg (Andrei Petrenko), and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra Saint Petersburg conducted by Valery Gergiev. Other vocal works include, “On Love and Hatred,” “Hommage à Marina Tsvetaeva,” and “Sonnengesang,” among others.
She was a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, the Freie Akademie der Künste in Hamburg and the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, received honorary doctorates from the Central Conservatory in Beijing, the Tianjin Music Conservatory, and the University of Chicago, was made a member of the Order “Pour le mérite” in 1999 and received numerous prizes.
Gubaidulina is considered one of today’s most important Russian composer. She drew much inspiration from her faith, as well as her interest in the world and people. She saw composing as a “sacred act” and the resulting work as a kind of “sacrifice.” Conductor Andris Nelsons said of the composer, “Sofia Gubaidulina’s music—its intellect and its profound spirituality—is deeply touching. It really gets under your skin.”
Gubaidulina passed away at her home near Hamburg, Germany due to a cancer diagnosis.
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