Maria Eklund
Maria Eklund (born 1973) is a Russian-born Swedish conductor. In 2005, she became the first woman to conduct an orchestra at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, breaking the barriers of what so far was a strictly male area of expertise. She conducted The Golden Cockerel by Rimsky-Korsakov. Early life and education Eklund was born in Moscow in a family of Russian intelligentsia. Her paternal grandmother was an accomplished pianist who graduated from The Moscow Conservatoire at the same time as the pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy. Her paternal grandfather is a physics scientist who worked at The Kurtchatov Institute in Moscow before relocating to Switzerland. She gained a university degree in choir conducting and pedagogical training in subjects such as conducting at Master level at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, in the class of Viktor Krasnoshekov, and Gnesin's Music Academy, in the class of Galina Rozdestvenskaya (1992-1997). She took a postgraduate course at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm in orchestral and choir conducting (1997-2000), in the class of Anders Eby and Jing Wang. Orchestras conducted Eklund has conducted the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Västerås Sinfonietta, the Norrland Opera Orchestra, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Folk Opera, Stockholm Strauss Orchestra, Swedish