Gaziza Akhmetovna Zhubanova

Gaziza Akhmetovna Zhubanova was born on 2 December 1927 in Aktyubinsk Region, Kazakhstan, and became one of the most prominent figures in the composition of her country. The daughter of the composer and researcher Akhmet Zhubanov, she grew up in an environment connected with traditional music and with the organisation of instrumental ensembles, as her father was the founder and conductor of the Kazakh Instruments Orchestra.

She trained in Moscow. She studied composition with Gnesin and Streicher at the Gnesin Institute and later with Shaporin at the Moscow Conservatory, from which she graduated in 1954, continuing postgraduate studies until 1957. Between 1962 and 1968 she chaired the Union of Composers of Kazakhstan, and from 1967 she taught composition at the Alma-Ata Conservatory, of which she served as director between 1975 and 1987.

A large part of her output consists of works on a grand scale, in which the boundaries between genres are blurred: features of the oratorio appear in her operas, such as Enlik-Kebek or Dvadtsat' vosem' (Twenty-Eight), while operatic elements are integrated into oratorios such as Pesnya Tat'yanï (The Song of Tatiana). She also maintains the Eastern tradition of dedications: her Symphony No. 1 "Zhiger" is dedicated to the folk composer Dauletkerei, and the opera Kurmangazï is dedicated to a leading performer of the küi, the Kazakh instrumental genre. The küi, in its meditative and dynamic forms, frequently serves as the basis of her music, and although the versions she wrote retain the nature of the genre, even when they appear in choral textures.

Her legacy lies in having united the Kazakh instrumental tradition with the musical language of the Soviet compositional school, leaving a catalogue that encompasses operas, ballets, symphonies, concertos, oratorios and chamber music.