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Masguda Shamsutdinova is a Passionate advocate of Tatar folk music
She ended up at the music school by pure chance. She was actually looking for a sports school, as her relatives had advised, noticing how tall and strong she’d become. But, a bit lost in the big city, she either got on the wrong bus or got off at the wrong stop.
These days, few believe in such coincidences, including Masguda Shamshutdinova herself, now known to most as a unique composer, a great expert, and a passionate advocate of Tatar folk music. She’s so passionate that even people in Sweden have heard of Tatar folklore. Masguda has many friends there from joint folklore expeditions and a series of radio programs about Tatar music recorded with her help. The usually reserved Swedes fell in love with her voice—mystical, stirring, and soothing all at once. Anyone who’s heard her sing, say, Syuyumbike Bayit, would understand. Through the sound of a woman’s inconsolable grief—part lament, part prayer—you gradually sense the image of a young beauty, no, a queen, both soulful and tragic.
It’s a pity Masguda sings rarely, though she often uses vocalizations and voice parts in her compositions. She doesn’t think her voice is anything special, saying it’s just too low for a woman. She adds, “My mother had a truly beautiful voice and sang wonderfully. My father was even jealous during those moments, knowing what a powerful force it was.”
Her father was known in their village as a kind of healer, treating people not with pills but with words. To someone suffering, he’d say, “Get up at dawn, take some food, and go to the Silver Spring near our village. Pray there, eat, drink from the spring, and walk back home.” Maybe the water had healing properties, but the main thing was that people were left alone with nature’s beauty. Looking around in awe, they’d start to passionately want to live.
Masguda was already studying at the Kazan Conservatory when she suddenly heard those same words: “Get up and go…” Her father had long passed away, but this was her inner voice, impossible to ignore. Everything in her life seemed perfect: she was studying under the great teacher Anatoly Luppov, had early creative success, and had exciting prospects. Yet, a feeling that she was living and doing something wrong came from within. She kept catching herself staring at the ground, or rather, the asphalt. She stopped seeing and feeling the beauty around her. This went on until she realized she needed to return to her roots, to drink from the life-giving source before the city’s endless hustle drained her soul.
So, she began traveling to Tatar villages, not just collecting musical folklore but soaking it in along with the landscapes, the clouds in the sky, and the simple, beautiful faces of grandmothers. Through these vivid, countless impressions, something inside her began to heal, like pieces coming together. She regained her peace, her confidence, and even her appearance changed—she blossomed. Music started to flow within her again. Masguda also found personal happiness, getting married and raising two sons.
Besides her, there are no musicians in her family, but everyone respects music deeply, just as they respect Masguda. Thankfully, her husband and now-grown children always understood she wasn’t made for everyday storms. They never made a fuss over a cold dinner or a late supper. When Masguda was offered a chance to study in Sweden—something she was initially afraid to mention at home—they let her go and lived without her for a whole year, often playing cassettes of her music.
Every artist follows a creative path, but not everyone can handle a spiritual one. You can tell who relies on technique and training and who creates by instinct, sometimes breaking rules but always trusting their inner ear and vision. Masguda leans toward the latter. Music must well up in her throat and pour out “like water from an overflowing barrel.” She’s not one of those composers who scrape the bottom of the barrel for a few drops. She’d rather do other work—around the house or at the madrasa, where she teaches Tatar girls “the beautiful” (that’s the name of her subject). When the time comes, her hand will reach for the music sheet on its own.
“I used to worry when people said I was doing something wrong in terms of technique or theory,” Masguda admits. “Now, I can hold a note for five minutes or longer, even though I know it’s ‘wrong.’ But I need it! In that moment, I might not even be thinking about music but about the Milky Way stretching from one star to another. That’s what I’m holding onto.”
Her music feels cosmic, with the same whispers, the same pulsing vastness, and the same magic. Sometimes, these sounds are too big for a concert hall and spill out onto squares and stadiums. Her piece Magdi, written for Albert Asadullin, who performed as Magdi, became a vibrant open-air spectacle. It was a huge success, though sadly, it was never repeated. That success inspired her to create Kurban Bayram and Ramazan, blending original music with ancient rituals.
When Masguda entered graduate school at the Institute of Language, Literature, and History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences to work on her dissertation, many were puzzled: Why? She already outshines any folklorist, so why spread herself thin? In Tatar music, Masguda Shamshutdinova is a name. Wouldn’t academic work distract her from her true calling—music—and dry up her artistry?
Masguda had no such doubts. For her, this was a natural step toward her lifelong goal of understanding the nature of artistic creation, or perhaps the divine spark in people, which are often one and the same. She’d always sensed this connection intuitively, but only recently felt strong enough to consciously pull at these invisible threads and see everything as a whole. Folklore, her ancestors’ beliefs, the nation’s mentality and fate, a childhood memory of a forest lake, and that long, pure sound she alone hears—for now.
There’s a higher meaning in all this, and intuition alone isn’t enough to grasp it. Knowledge, a lot of knowledge, is needed.
Yet, there’s a kind of competitive spirit in her character. The tougher the challenge, the more confidently she takes it on. The defense of her dissertation and the premiere of her symphony Ibn Fadlan nearly coincided. But Masguda didn’t postpone either. Deep down, she was glad the stress would merge into one, leaving no time to wonder which event mattered more. Life itself answered that question.
By Olga Strelnikova
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