Azerbaijan celebrates 97th anniversary of Gara Garayev

Baku. 5 February. REPORT.AZ/ Today is a birthday of Azerbaijani composer, public artist of the Soviet period, prominent figure Gara Abulfaz ogly Garayev.

Report informs, on February 5 Azerbaijan celebrates 97th anniversary of the world-famous composer. He will be honored and concert program including his musical pieces will be performed.

Gara Garayev was born in 1918, Baku in the family of doctor Garayev was born into a family of pediatricians, which was famous in Baku. His mother, Sona, was among the first graduates of the Baku-based school of the Russian Music Society. Garayev's younger brother, Mursal, became a surgeon, but died at an early age.

In 1926, at the age of eight, Gara Garayev first entered the junior music school at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, currently known as the Baku Music Academy. Due to his musical talents, Garayev was allowed to enroll simultaneously in two faculties at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire in 1933. Among his teachers were Georgi Sharoyev, Leonid Rudolf, and the prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov. In 1937, Garayev joined the Union of Composers of Azerbaijan SSR.

In 1938, at the age of twenty, Garayev composed his first musical piece, a cantata "The Song of the Heart" to the poem by Rasul Rza. In 1941 Garayev returned to Baku to teach at Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Society. In 1945, both he and Jovdat Hajiyev wrote the Motherland ("Vətən") opera. In 1952, under the direction of the choreographer P. A. Gusev, Garayev's Seven Beauties ballet was staged at the Azerbaijani Theater of Opera and Ballet. Based on Nizami Ganjavi's famous poem, Seven Beauties ("Yeddi gözəl") it became the first Azerbaijani ballet and opened a new chapter in the history of classical music of Azerbaijan.