Shoista Mullojonova (also spelled Shoista Mullodzhanova, Tajik: Шоиста Муллоҷонова, Russian: Шоиста Муллоджанова; September 3, 1925 – June 26, 2010), born Shushana Rubinovna Mullodzhanova, was a renowned Tajik-born Bukharian Jewish Shashmaqam singer. She was born in Dushanbe, Tajik ASSR to a religious Bukharian Jewish family. Her mother, Sivyo Davydova, was from Samarkand and her father, Rubin Mullodzhanov, originally came from Bukhara. At some point as an adult she changed her surname from Mullodzhanova to Mullojonova in Soviet Tajikistan. Her family was full of entertainers (actors, singers, and musicians). In 1924, her parents and older siblings (Ribi, Levi, Itzakhar, Roshel, Zulai) moved from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan, where Shoista was born a year later. She learned to speak fluent Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajiki-Persian language, and Russian. Her mother was also a singer and her whole family was into music and acting. She graduated from the Stalinabad Women's Pedagogical School in 1943 and studied at the Moscow Conservatory from 1947 to 1953. Shoista Mullojonova had her debut at age 8 when she sang on Dushanbe radio. During the beginning of her career, in the early 1940s, she was part of the Rubab Player Ensemble in Tajikistan's Ensemble. With the ensemble, in 1945, she sang in Iran for the royal family of Iran and the Shah, the Pahlavis including Reza Shah the Great, and for the Iranian audience in Bukhori. She earned the title, Merited Artist of Tajikistan, at the age of 20. By the mid-1940s, Mullojonova broke away from the ensemble and began to sing solo. In May 1945, at the conclusion of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, she sang the Tajik/Russian song "Idi Zafar" (Holiday of Victory) on the Tajik State Radio in Stalinabad in honor of Victory Day over Nazi Germany. After graduating cum laude from Moscow Conservatory in 1953, she performed at the Aini Theater for Opera and Ballet. The roles that she developed there include Mahin in Tohir va Zuhro (Tohir and Zuhro) by A. Lenskii; Gulizor in Shurishi Vose (The Vose Uprising) by S. Balasanian; Marfa in Arusi Shoh (The Bride of the King) by Rimsky-Korsakov, and others. Through the years, she sang Shashmaqam music throughout Central Asia, Middle East, and the Soviet Union. She was named the "People's Artist of Tajikistan", in 1957 and Merited Artist of the USSR. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, she was a soloist vocalist for the Tajik State Philharmonic. Mullojonova sang music of all other Soviet republics and of Eastern people. She always preferred the music of her Eastern and Tajik people. In 1975, she was named senior instrutor at the Tajikistan State Institute of Arts. In the 1980s, Mullojonova earned a reputation for being the Queen of Tajik Music. She sang in Central Asia and all over the former Soviet Union for 50 years. In 1991, Shoista and her family began to move from Central Asia, to the United States because of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the start of the civil war and rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Tajikistan. The family settled in Forest Hills, New York. After emigrating to New York, Shoista joined the Bukharan Shashmaqam Ensemble, founded by Fatima Kuinova, "Merited Artist Tajikistan" and later the "Maqom" Ensemble, founded by Ilyas Malayev, "Merited Artist of Uzbekistan". After her husband, Efrem Haritonovitch Benyaev, died, she dedicated an album, "I'm Singing for You", in his memory. In September 2005, in Forest Hills High School, Shoista sang for an audience who all came to celebrate her 80th birthday, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Governor George Pataki, President Emomalii Rahmon of Tajikistan, and Boris Kandov, President of the Bukharian Jewish Congress of USA and Canada. Aged 80 she was able to touch people with her singing and remind them that she is singing for each and every one of them, as she says, "I am singing for you." On June 26, 2010, Shoista Mullojonova died after suffering a heart attack in Forest Hills, New York.