Azerbaijani conductor to join Minsk Int'l Christmas Opera Forum

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani conductor will join the 12th Minsk International Christmas Opera Forum, Azernews reports. The forum will take place in Belarus on December 13-18.

Within the forum, Moscow's Helikon-Opera Musical Theater will present Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot on December 14.

The theater will perform under the baton of Honoured Artist Ayyub Guliyev, musical director of the Azerbaijan State Opera and Ballet Theater.

Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.

The opera's best-known aria is Nessun dorma (Let no one sleep), which became globally popular in the 1990s following Luciano Pavarotti's performance of it for the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

Ayyub Guliyev is the winner of several competitions, including the International Conducting Competition after B. Lyutoslavckiy in Belostok in 2006 and the International Conducting Competition after D. Mitropoulos in Athens in 2008, and many others.

The Honored Artist of Azerbaijan successfully collaborated with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (United Kingdom), Hamburg Klassik (Germany), Radio France, Lamoure, Elios (France) orchestras, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Wiener Consilium (Austria), Toscanini Philharmonic (Italy), Kolors Symphony Orchestra (Greece), Sichuan and Kunmin Philharmonic Orchestras (China), Danube Orchestra (Hungary), Russian National Orchestra (RNO), Russian Philharmonic Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra (Croatia), Lithuanian National Orchestra, etc.

In 2018, Ayyub Guliyev was appointed as the chief conductor and music director of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater. He is also an associate professor at the Baku Music Academy.

In 2021, Ayyub Guliyev signed a contract with music agencies in Serbia, Slovakia, and Germany.

Several projects have been already implemented as part of this cooperation.

The composer also signed a contract with the Dutch company TACT.

The company is the global leader in personal artist management of established international artists.