Veronika Borisovna Dudarova (; os, Дудараты Барисы чызг Вероникæ; January 15, 2009) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and Russian conductor, the first woman to succeed as conductor of symphony orchestras in the 20th century. She became a conductor of the

Moscow State Symphony Orchestra The Moscow State Symphony Orchestra (MSSO) is a Russian orchestra, based in Moscow. The orchestra gives concerts primarily at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. As well, the orchestra gives concerts in ...

in 1947, and led this and other orchestras for sixty years. In 1991, she founded the Symphony Orchestra of Russia. Dudarova was born in

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

to an ethnic Ossetian, formerly aristocratic, family. She attended the school of music in Baku (class of Stephan Strasser), the piano department of the

Leningrad Conservatory The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory (russian: Санкт-Петербургская государственная консерватория имени Н. А. Римского-Корсакова) (formerly known as th ...

(1933–1937), and the conductors' department of the

Moscow Conservatory The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (russian: Московская государственная консерватория им. П. И. Чайковского, link=no) is a musical educational inst ...

(1939–1947). For thirteen years, from 1947 until 1960, Dudarova was a junior conductor at the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra; in 1960, she took over as the principal conductor and led the orchestra until 1989. She led the Symphony Orchestra of Russia from 1991 to 2003 and retained the role of artistic manager of the orchestra until her death in Moscow in January 2009. In 1977, she was awarded the title of

People's Artist of the USSR People's Artist of the USSR ( rus, Народный артист СССР, Narodny artist SSSR), also sometimes translated as National Artist of the USSR, was an honorary title granted to artists of the Soviet Union. Nomenclature and significan ...

. In the 1987 documentary '' A Woman Is a Risky Bet: Six Orchestra Conductors,'' directed by

Christina Olofson Anna-Maria Christina Olofson (born June 13, 1948 in Kristinehamn, Kristinehamn, Värmlands län, Sweden) is a Swedish film director, producer and scriptwriter. In 1974, after founding the Hagafilm production company with Göran du Rées, she went o ...

, Dudarova conducts the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and Choir in a performance of

Mozart's Requiem The Requiem in D minor, K. 626, is a requiem mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). Mozart composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on 5 December the same year. A completed version date ...

. The main-belt asteroid 9737 Dudarova was named after her. According to her son Mikhail, during a concert in Andorra in 1993, due to her intense style of conducting, Dudarova fell from the podium but went on conducting the orchestra lying on the floor leaning on her right hand and the piece was performed to the end without an interruption."Со жгучим 'Болеро' на бис"
(With burning ''

Boléro ''Boléro'' is a 1928 work for large orchestra by French composer Maurice Ravel. At least one observer has called it Ravel's most famous composition. It was also one of his last completed works before illness forced him into retirement. Co ...

'' as an encore), interview by Ian Smirnitsky with Dudarova's son Mikhail, ''

Moskovskij Komsomolets ''Moskovskij Komsomolets'' (russian: Московский комсомолец, lit=Moscow Komsomolets) is a Moscow-based daily newspaper with a circulation approaching one million, covering general news. Founded in 1919, it is famed for its to ...

'', 26 November 2011

References

External links

*
"Дударова Вероника Борисовна"
(Dudarova, Veronika Borisovna), ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Dudarova, Veronika Soviet conductors (music) Women conductors (music) People's Artists of the USSR Musicians from Baku Ossetian people 1916 births 2009 deaths Burials in Troyekurovskoye Cemetery 20th-century Russian conductors (music)