A graduate of the Volgograd Music College, where she studied in the class of its founder and director G. E. Pozharskaya; in 1967 she entered the Gnesin State Musical‑Pedagogical Institute (now the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music), studying with Professors S. D. Gusev and V. O. Semenyuk.
She later gained extensive teaching and performing experience while working at the music colleges of Volgograd and Yakutsk.
The activities of Margarita Mikhailovna Apeksimova within the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music are both wide‑ranging and highly significant. She teaches core subjects such as conducting and choral score reading, gives lectures on the methodology of solfeggio teaching at college level, and supervises diploma theses, consistently demonstrating outstanding organisational abilities.
She plays an active role in the creative and administrative life of the department, and with her characteristic energy and temperament undertakes a large volume of administrative and public work: helping to organise and run student choir festivals, conferences, concerts, and tours by the department’s academic choir, and serving as Dean of the Conducting Faculty. Drawing on the pedagogical methods and principles of her own teachers, she applies them with great success in her work. Her enthusiasm and dedication, her care for each student and concern for their future, have enabled her to achieve outstanding results in training young musicians.
Her former students teach in music institutions and direct choral ensembles, among them:
- T. Kosach (Oprish), Head of the Choral Department and Choir Director at the 2nd Moscow Regional Music College named after S. S. Prokofiev;
- L. Dantsevich, Choir Director and Head of the Choral Department at the Kaluga Music College;
- N. Turik, chorus master and teacher at the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre;
- E. Golomazova, lecturer at the St Tikhon Orthodox University;
- I. Antonova, Choir Director and Head of the Choral Department at the Rybinsk (or Ryazan) Pirogov Music College;
- N. Stepanova, chorus master of the Moscow State Concert and Theatre Chapel under V. A. Sudakov and Associate Professor in the Choral Conducting Department of the Gnesin Academy;
- A. Davydov, chorus master of the Helikon‑Opera Music Theatre under Dmitry Bertman;
- A. Kubyshkin, Associate Professor in the Choral Conducting Department and director of the senior‑year ensemble at the Gnesin Academy;
- D. Morozov, lecturer in the Choral Conducting Department of the Gnesin Academy.
Margarita Mikhailovna Apeksimova is a talented and versatile musician. An integral part of her teaching is scholarly work. She is the author of publications on contemporary chamber‑choral performance and on the choral works of V. Bely and S. Vasilenko, and has co‑authored (with T. A. Malysheva) teaching programmes in solfeggio methodology and choral score reading. She has developed a course in solfeggio teaching methodology, which she successfully delivers to students of the faculty.
She carries out extensive methodological work: chairing state attestation commissions, serving as chair of state examination boards in many music institutions of the Moscow region, giving open lessons, and lecturing on the faculty’s professional‑development courses.
For her major contribution to the training of highly qualified choral conductors she was awarded the title «Honoured Worker of Higher Education of the Russian Federation» in 2005. For her long service M. M. Apeksimova has received the Jubilee Medal «850th Anniversary of Moscow», as well as numerous honorary certificates and letters of appreciation.
