Biography

She was born on October 28, 1957, at the 9th railway station of Djangiztobe in the Semipalatinsk region, where she also graduated from a boarding school. She was one of 8 children in the family. Her father, a railroad worker, passed away in 2014, and her mother, Aytu, a homemaker, died in 2013. Her older brother also became a musician and had a significant influence on her in childhood. After school, Rymbaeva studied at the Semipalatinsk Music College for three years. In 1975, she first participated in a song contest dedicated to the 30th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. There, she was noticed by the chief conductor of the republican youth pop ensemble Gulder, Taskyn Okapov, who invited her to join as a soloist. From 1976 to 1979, she was a soloist of the Gulder youth pop ensemble. Since 1979, she became a soloist of the pop ensemble Aray, where her husband, Taskyn Okapov, was the director and artistic leader. Rymbaeva gained widespread fame in June 1977 at the Golden Orpheus Festival in Bulgaria, where she won the Grand Prix for performing the song Aliya, dedicated to the memory of the sniper of the Great Patriotic War, Aliya Moldagulova. In 1977, Rymbaeva also participated in the program Voices of Friends with the song Lady Carnaval (music by K. Svoboda, lyrics by I. Shtaydl, Russian lyrics by O. Gadjikasimov). Her peak popularity came in 1977-1979, when she reached the finals of the Song of the Year festival and, in 1978, was ranked third among the best female singers of the USSR in the Sound Track chart, right after Alla Pugacheva and Sofia Rotaru. Since 1979, she has been a soloist of the Republican Concert Association Kazakhconcert and, since 1995, has combined her work with teaching at the Kazakh Academy of Arts named after T. Zhurgenov. In 1984, she graduated from the faculty of musical and dramatic comedy at the Theater and Art Institute in Almaty. In 2000, she participated again in the final of Song of the Year in Moscow with the song Love Has Come, composed by Raimonds Pauls and with lyrics by Robert Rozhdestvensky. In 2008, she carried the torch at the Beijing Olympic Games. In 2011, she performed the anthem and carried the torch at the VII Winter Asian Games held in Kazakhstan. In 2012, she went on a concert tour to Japan, Russia, Turkey, and Belarus. In 2014, she participated in the Kazakhstan Days in Saint Petersburg, performing on the stage of the Mikhailovsky Theater. In spring, she toured Volgograd, performing with the local pop-symphonic orchestra. In 2015, Rymbaeva and her eldest son Ali Okapov appeared in the music video Our Beshbarmak is Fresh by Alexander Shumsky, which caused mixed reactions from the audience. In 2017, she held a large solo concert in Astana, dedicated to her 60th anniversary. In October 2021, she participated twice in the Duets show on the Russia-1 TV channel. In 2023, she performed at the Voice of Asia festival. In 2024, she headed the jury at the Slavianski Bazaar 2024 competition in Vitebsk. She currently lives in Almaty.