A Russian
cellist, born in
Kazan, began studying
cello at the age of five. Her first teacher was the cellist
Anisim Berlin, a pupil of the great
Leopold Auer. Her late husband
Oleg Kagan and her son
Sviatoslav Moroz are both
violinists, and she has often worked with them. Moroz uses a violin inherited from Anisim Berlin.
She entered the Moscow Conservatoire in 1964, studied under Mstislav Rostropovich, and came to international prominence in 1967 when she won first prize in a competition in Munich.
She and her husband were especially keen on contemporary music, and Alfred Schnittke dedicated his 1985 Concerto grosso No. 2 for Violin, Violoncello and Orchestra to the couple, who gave the first performance. Schnittke's 1978 cello sonata and his first concerto were also dedicated to Gutman.
In chamber music, she has often worked with Martha Argerich, Sviatoslav Richter, Yuri Bashmet, Mischa Maisky, Evgeny Kissin, and Isaac Stern. Richter has called her 'the incarnation of honesty in art'.
She and her husband loved the Bavarian Alps and founded a chamber music festival there, at Wildbad Kreuth on the Tegernsee, in July 1990. Later that year Oleg Kagan died and in 1992 it was renamed the Oleg Kagan Musikfest.
Since 1991 she has taught in Stuttgart at the Hochschule für Musik. She was co-founder with Claudio Abbado of the series of chamber music encounters in Berlin between young performers and established artists.
There is an interview with her at http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/gutman.htm