"How a piece of bubblegum changed my life ..."

Rimma Sushanskaya is one of only a handful of world-renowned women conductors – yet she only came to conducting relatively late in life.

Born in Russia, Rimma inherited the gift of playing from her grandfather, a fine amateur violinist who died in the siege of Leningrad. She trained as a violinist from the age of 7 and was a star pupil under David Oistrakh with whom she studied at the Moscow Conservatoire. “Those two years were like a dream – the greatest time of my life”.

Leaving Moscow to follow her parents and sister who had fled to the West, she followed them in 1978. She talks about her early life in the Soviet Union as a very unfriendly world for talented people who wanted to leave. Established artists were kept 'secret'.

Upon leaving the Soviet Union she rapidly established a glowing international reputation in the West as a full-time professional violinist giving solo concerts all over the world – including USA, Canada, Europe and South America. The Washington Post described her as “one of the greatest violinists alive today”.

It was in 2003 that she fell and damaged her right arm falling over bubblegum whilst rushing to prepare for her next concert at Carnegie Hall. This effectively brought her career as a professional violinist to an end. At first, she didn’t know what to do with the rest of her life as music had been so important to her but quotes Rimma, "magic happened". Whilst listening to Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No.1, she suddenly started conducting it. With no training, a conductor friend told her she had a great talent and advised her to immediately take up conducting. She returned to the UK to study conducting helped by her friend the late composer and conductor, Guy Woolfenden.

For the last 30 years she has lived in England currently in Stratford Upon Avon as a very successful conductor and does not feel any different being a woman where traditionally conductors are macho maestros. Nor does she feel discriminated against or feel uncomfortable about being a Russian in the UK, despite what has been happening in the Ukraine.

Rimma has been married three times. Two of her husbands were Russian and one British. Her first husband was a Doctor of Physics, the second an engineer and Master in Chess and when she came to the UK she married a barrister, also a racing driver, a friend of the late Stirling Moss, who died several years ago. Her only son is an established violinist living in the USA.

Rimma is currently teaching master classes at Birmingham Conservatoire and is still in demand as a guest conductor for orchestras around the world. In October 2020 she was appointed Principal Associate Conductor to the National Symphony Orchestra.

She currently has a new CD coming out on the Quartz Music label on 17 June 2022.

Brahms: Tragic Overture, Op 81

Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op 56a

Brahms: Symphony No 2 in D Major, Op 73