BERLIN, March 14, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina died at the age of 93 on Thursday in Germany, where she had lived since the break-up of the Soviet Union, her publisher announced.

She died at home near Hamburg, music publisher Boosey & Hawkes said on its website, calling Gubaidulina "the grande dame of new music".

Acclaimed for her singular style rooted in religion but transcending tradition, she was a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, Boosey & Hawkes said.

A non-conformist who endured Soviet censorship before emigrating to the West, she toiled in obscurity for years before emerging as one the foremost musical talents of her time.

Born in 1931 in Chistopol to a mixed Russian-Tatar family, she was baptised into the Orthodox Church in 1970, but Muslim traditions played a crucial role in some of her works.

"I am a religious Russian Orthodox person and I understand 'religion' in the literal meaning of the word, as 're-ligio', that is to say the restoration of connections, the restoration of the 'legato' of life," she once said.

"There is no more serious task for music than this."

Gubaidulina was blacklisted in 1979 by the Union of Soviet Composers and banned from publishing scores.

It was only after the Soviet break-up that she settled near Hamburg and solidified her status as one of the most important composers of the post-Shostakovich era.