Maya I. Shinkareva

Musicologist and teacher.

Born in Halle, Germany, she graduated in 1971 from the Musicology Faculty of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music (then the Gnesin State Music and Pedagogical Institute). Her teachers included distinguished musicologists, composers, and scholars such as S. S. Skrebkov, G. I. Litinsky, F. E. Vitachek, K. K. Rosenchild, F. G. Arzamanov, R. N. Berberov, N. I. Peiko, G. I. Kunitsyn, and M. I. Dubrovin.

In 1976 she completed postgraduate studies at the Gnesin Institute, defending a dissertation on polyphony in Beethoven’s chamber music at the State Institute for Art Studies under Professor E. P. Fedosova.

After graduation she taught in the Department of Music Theory at the Krasnodar State University of Culture (1971–1978) and at the Moscow State University of Culture and Arts (1978–1993).

Since 1993 she has worked at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music in the Department of Polyphony, Analysis, and Analytical Musicology, where she teaches polyphony, including courses for postgraduate students and professional‑development trainees.

Her professional activity also includes supervising undergraduate diploma projects, theoretical qualifying works by postgraduates, and dissertation research; a number of her postgraduate students have successfully defended Candidate theses.

She has taken part in scholarly conferences in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Rostov‑on‑Don, as well as in the international forum «Harmony of the Future», the international congress «Science, Art, Education...» (Volgograd, 2000), and the First Congress of the Russian Society for Music Theory (St. Petersburg, 2013). She also participated in the Student Piece Prize Conference at Sciences Po (Paris, 2011), presenting student research projects.

She has served as an opponent on dissertation councils at leading Russian institutions, including the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, the State Institute for Art Studies, the Moscow State University of Culture and Arts, the Novosibirsk State Conservatoire (Academy) named after M. I. Glinka, and the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music.

A DAAD grant holder, she carried out research at the University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich‑Wilhelms‑Universität Bonn) and the Beethoven‑Archiv in Bonn in 1992.

She is the author and editor of around eighty publications of scholarly, methodological, journalistic, and educational character in academic and periodical outlets, including peer‑reviewed journals recognised by the Russian Higher Attestation Commission.

She has served on the Dissertation Council at the Moscow State University of Culture and Arts (1995–2000), chaired State Examination Boards in musicology and composition at the Novosibirsk State Conservatoire (2006–2007), and worked with State Attestation Commissions at music colleges across Russia.

As an invited expert she contributed to the Cultural Programmes Department of the Organising Committee for the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, for which she received a letter of appreciation from the Committee Chair. She has also served on expert panels for the all‑Russian prize «Window on Russia» (newspaper Kultura, 2000) and for the development of Federal State Educational Standards in higher music education (2000–2001).

She has been a jury member at international competitions, including the Canadian national humanities competition «Chaires d’excellence en recherche du Canada» (CERC), and has curated music‑education projects at the Russian‑German House in Moscow (1999–2001).

She is co‑ordinator and academic director of the Student Scientific and Creative Society (SNTО) of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music and has led the International Student Research Competition in Musical Art since 2001, succeeding Professor I. P. Susidko. She initiated and directs the international student conference «Music in the Modern World: Culture, Art, Education» (2010, 2012, 2013).

She is a member of the Academic Council of the Faculty of History, Theory, and Composition at the Gnesin Academy and of the Russian Society for Music Theory.

She holds the title and medal «Veteran of Labour» and in 2007 was awarded the honorary title «Honoured Worker of Higher Education of the Russian Federation».

Selected publications:

• M. I. Shinkareva, «The Fugue as an Art: Between Form and Metamorphosis», Sovremennyye problemy muzykoznaniya (Contemporary Musicology Issues), Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, 2022, no. 2.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «Forms of Contemporary Polyphony: On the Stable and the Mobile in Art», in Musical Composition: Historical Metamorphoses, abstracts of the IV International Conference, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, 2021, pp. 138–139.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «On the Main Tendencies of Contemporary Polyphony: Artistic Practice and Theory», in Nauchnyye shkoly v muzykoznanii XXI veka, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, 2020, pp. 395–407.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «From Work to Authorial Intention: Problems of Verification», in Musical Composition: From Intention to Opus, proceedings of the III International Conference, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, 2019, pp. 53–54.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «Methodological Approaches to Studying Contemporary Polyphony: Problems of Definition», in Terms, Concepts, and Categories in Musicology, abstracts of the IV Congress of the Russian Society for Music Theory, Kazan State Conservatoire, 2019, pp. 98–99.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «Symbolism in Opera‑House Architecture: On the Sociocultural Status of Opera», in Opera in the Musical Theatre: History and Modernity, abstracts and full papers of the international conference, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, 2019, vol. 3, pp. 92–99.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «Appropriation in the Visual Arts – and What in Music?», Sovremennyye problemy muzykoznaniya, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, 2017, no. 4, pp. 77–92.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «The Role and Significance of Authorial Remarks for Musical Analysis», in Tekhnika muzykal’nogo sochineniya v raz’yasneniyakh avtora, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, 2016, pp. 261–273.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «Contemporary Polyphony as an Object of Musicology: The Crystallisation of a New Discipline», Aktual’nyye problemy vysshego muzykal’nogo obrazovaniya, 2015, no. 1 (35), pp. 35–41.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «Contemporary Polyphony: Theoretical and Pedagogical Aspects», in Teoriya muzyki: aktual’nyye voprosy metodiki prepodavaniya, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, 2015, pp. 84–97.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «What Is the Essence of Beethoven’s Polyphony?», in Muzykovedeniye v XXI veke. Rossiya–Germaniya: dialogi i parallel, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, 2014, pp. 83–89.
• M. I. Shinkareva, «Contemporary Polyphony as a Subject of Musicology: Crystallisation of a New Discipline», and other earlier works on polyphony, methodology, and music education, published in peer‑reviewed Russian journals and conference volumes since the late 1990s.