Soprano Albina Shagimuratova is a second-year artist with the Houston Grand Opera Studio and a native of Russia. During Houston Grand Opera's 2007-08 season, she will sing the roles of Queen of the night in Die Zauberflöte and Musetta in La Bohème. In HGO's 2006-07 season, she sang the roles of the Sandman and Dew Fairy in Hansel and Gretel and Frantik in The Cunning Little Vixen.

She studied choral conducting at the Auhadeev Music College in Kazan from 1994 to 1998, and from 1998 to 2001 studied voice and opera in the Kazan State Conservatory. She continued her vocal and operatic studies at the Moscow State Conservatory (studying voice with G. Pisarenko), where she graduated with honors in 2004 and continued at the post-graduate level. In 2004, Ms. Shagimuratova joined the Moscow Academic Music Theatre as soloist, where she has frequently performed. During her tenure at the theater, she has performed leading roles including Violetta in La Traviata, The Swan in The Tale of Tsar Saltan by Rimsky-Korsakov and the Queen of Shemakha in The Golden Cockerel, also by Rimsky-Korsakov. She has also performed the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte with The Grande Opera of Kazan. Ms. Shagimuratova has toured in the United States and Europe with these same companies in La Traviata and Die Zauberflöte. She has given recitals at the S. Richter International Festival in Tarusa, as well as Yaroslavl, Kazan and Moscow. She has appeared often in concert and oratorio performances throughout Russia and Eastern Europe, featured as soloist in works by Mozart, Mahler, Beethoven, Rossini, Fauré, and Lloyd Webber.

Ms. Shagimuratova was the third place winner of the Francisco Viñas International Vocal Competition in Barcelona in 2005, second place winner of the Irina Bogacheva International Competition for Singers in Saint Petersburg in 2003, and the first place winner in the M. Glinka International Competition of Opera Singers in Chelyabinsk.