Gaziza Zhubanova

Gaziza Zhubanova was born 2 December 1927, in a village in the Jurun District, Aktyubinsk. Zhubanova attended school in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, and graduated with honors. She was the daughter of Akhmet Zhubanov, a university educated musician and composer who was remembered as the first Kazakh composer to embrace Western music, and grew up in a musical environment.^[1][2]

In 1945 Gaziza Zhubanova began studying at Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow, where she learned composition with M. Gnesin and L. Shtreiher.^[1] After completing her studies there, she studied composition with Yuri Shaporin, at the Moscow Conservatoire. After graduating in 1954, she took additional studies in composition and then in 1957 began a career as a composer.^[1]

In 1954, she participated in the Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Kazakh Union of Composers. Gaziza Zhubanova has been Chairman of the Kazakh Union of Composers, a member of the board of the USSR Union of Composers and was director of the Alma-Ata City Conservatory from 1975 to 1987.^[1] She often worked with the Kazakh Song and Dance Company.^[3][1]

Gaziza Zhubanova uses subjects and images from the Kazakh history and folklore. She has composed in different forms, including piano, violin, voice, chorus, string quartet and popular songs. A 'significant part' of her output is large-scale works including opera and ballet, orchestral and choral works.^[1]

• Aksak Kulan (1953–1954), symphonic poem
• Booming in the night (1916), opera
• Violin Concerto (1957)
• Melody (Мелодия) in C♯ minor for viola and piano (1950)
• Night Light in the Ural (1957), cantata (words by Khamit Ergaliev)
• Incidental music for On the Banks of the Irtysh (play by S. Kusainov)
• Ode to the Communist Party
• Glory to the Cosmonaut
• Embrace
• Ye Millions!
• Song of Virgin Lands Enthusiasts
• The Song Is the Voice of My Heart
• The Earth, the Moon and Sputnik, ballet (choreography by V. Vainonen)
• Ballade of Mukhtar Auezov, cantata
• A Legend of the White Bird, ballet