Reference Letter (Folke Rabe)
Stockholm , May 13, 1997
To whom it may concern
I have known Masguda Shamsutdinova for almost 8 years. (We first met at a music festival in Warsaw, Poland in 1989.) She is an ambitious composer, musician and ethnomusicologist.
As a composer she is talented and serious and has an original profile in her efforts to establish a relation between a contemporary music language and the traditions of her native Tatar culture. She has not been following worn out paths such as national romanticism or copying other composers who have been trying to include folk music elements in their compositions. In the works of hers that I know I would say that she has succeeded very well in her efforts, still maintaining her own personality.
As an ethnomusicologist I know that she has been recording and collecting traditional music of Tatarstan on her own through several years. I had an opportunity to experience her deep knowledge in these traditions in 1993 when I and a colleague of mine from the Swedish Broadcasting Corp. made a recording expedition to Tatarstan. Our excursions to different villages were planned by Masguda Shamsutdinova and we were quite satisfied with the musical environments which she had chosen for us and with the practical arrangements in connection to he recording sessions. The result of this expedition was a series of 5 programs which have been broadcasted in Sweden but also been offered and ordered through the European Broadcasting Union distribution system. Two years later my colleague carried out a second recording expedition to Tatarstan in which Masguda Shamsutdinova was playing the same role. The result of this project as equally satisfying and it was presented to Swedish listeners in another series of radio programs.
I know Masguda Shamsutdinova as an absolutely dedicated musician and scientist who is devoting all her energy (which hardly has any limits) to the projects in which she gets interested.
Folke Rabe
Composer and Program Manager at the Swedish Broadcasting Corp., Program 2.
Folke Rabe, Birkagatan 1, S-113 36 Stockholm , Sweden .
Phone - (home), +46-8-784 11 92 (Swedish Broadcasting)
Fax +46-8-661 80 25 (Swedish Broadcasting). E-mail folke.rabe@p2.sr.se
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