Dilbar Abdurahmonova
Russian-born Uzbekistani violinist and conductor Dilbar Gulyamovna Abdurahmonova, 'the first female conductor in the East', was born in Moscow on 1 May 1936. She began studying the violin aged ten, and her teachers included Mukhtar Ashrafi. She was a student at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan, and one of the best students of Mukhtar Ashrafi, founder of the Uzbek school of orchestral conducting.
She gave sixty-two years of her life to the Navoi State Academic Bolshoi Theatre. She also taught opera performance at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan. In 1977 she became a People's Artist of the USSR.
Dilbar Abdurahmonova died on 20 March 2018, aged eighty-one.