New Life Brass performs at Uzeyir Hajibeyli Int’l Music Festival

By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Russian New Life Brass quintet performed at International Mugham Center on September 19.

The concert was held as part of the 10th Uzeyir Hajibeyli International Music Festival.

New Life Brass - brass musical ensemble, was formed in 2009 by students of the Gnesin Academy of Music (the second year of study). The ensemble gathered musicians from different countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus) and different nationalities.

The world-renowned quintet consists of wind instruments. New Life Brass participates in various international competitions and festivals. The repertoire of the musicians includes works of classical and jazz genres.

The Baku audience welcomed the quintet with great interest.

The 10th Uzeyir Hajibeyli International Music Festival once again brings together the world-renowned musicians from Azerbaijan, Russia, the U.S., Turkey, Italy and Slovakia.

The Festival, scheduled for September 18-26, is taking place in Baku.

The birthday of legendary composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli (September 18) is celebrated as National Music Day in Azerbaijan since 1995. The International Music Festival is organized yearly to honor creativity of the world-famous composer.

According to tradition, annually on this day outstanding performers, orchestras from many countries gather in Baku to demonstrate their skills, performing in the best concert halls of the capital.

The festival is supported by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the Ministry of Culture.

The event program is incredibly diverse and includes not only concerts of famous music groups, but also creative evenings, conferences and much more.

Uzeyir Hajibeyli’s outstanding musical talent started a revolution in the Azerbaijani musical timeline. He was the very musician to introduce an extraordinary innovation in the nation's music culture, to constantly refresh it, and adjust to modern tastes. He was a founder of an opera genre not only in Azerbaijan, but the East and created the first Muslim opera in the Islamic world.

His unique synthesis of Oriental and Western music significantly promoted the classical music traditions in the East and opened a page of classical music patterns.

The unique composer was brave enough to explore blending two incompatibly different cultures at root and achieve an unprecedented synthesis.

History recognizes Hajibeyli as an innovator as well as the first to establish a professional music school and Orchestra for Traditional Folk Instruments, to compose the Muslim world’s first opera and operetta, to introduce a woman on stage, to write the country’s national anthem (which is the official anthem of Azerbaijan today), to be awarded the highest artistic title of the Soviet Union.

Through his music as well as work as a journalist, teacher, and translator, Hajibeyli played a vital role in the fight against illiteracy and helped usher in a cultural shift, launching a period of enlightenment that transcended Azerbaijan’s borders and reached many others in the Eurasia region.

"Arshin Mal Alan" or The Cloth Peddler was the latest and one of the most popular operettas of the eminent composer. The comedic and romantic operetta premiered in Azerbaijan in 1913, thus becoming the first operetta in the entire Muslim world.

It become one of the most well-known and dearly-loved stories among Azerbaijanis. The operetta has been successfully performed in a plethora of languages in over 60 countries of the world, including in U.S, Austria, France, China, Greece, India, Russia, and Turkey.