A leading modern
composer, born in 1931 in
Chistopol in
Tatarstan (part of Russia). Her music is allied to that of other Soviet
avant-garde composers such as
Alfred Schnittke and
Edison Denisov. She studied at the
Kazan Conservatoire, but was little known outside the Soviet Union until the mid 1980s, when her haunting
violin concerto called
Offertorium was played by its dedicatee
Gidon Kremer.
She travelled to the West in 1985, and settled near Hamburg in 1992. Among her commissions are a string quartet for the Kronos Quartet in 1994, a viola concerto for Yuri Bashmet in 1997, and a work In the Shadow of the Tree for koto, bass koto, zheng, and orchestra. She is renowned for the unusual combinations in her instrumentation.