Gara Garayev

Gara Abulfaz oglu Garayev (February 5, 1918 in Baku - May 13, 1982 in Moscow), was a prominent Azerbaijani composer of the Soviet period. Gara Garayev wrote nearly 110 musical pieces including ballets, operas, symphonic and chamber pieces, solos for piano, cantatas, songs and marches, and rose to prominence not only in Azerbaijan SSR but also in the rest of the Soviet Union and worldwide.

 Gara Garayev was born in 1918 to a pediatrician father, who was famous in Baku, and a musician mother. His mother-Sona-khanym, was among the first graduates of the Baku-based school of the Russian Music Society. Gara 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, in 1933 Gara Garayev was allowed to enroll simultaneously in two faculties at the conservatoire. Among his teachers were Georgi Sharoyev, Leonid Rudolf, and the prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli.

 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. Garayev conducted his cantata during its premiere the "Decade of Azerbaijani Art" festival in the Bolshoi Theater, an event also attended by Stalin. 

In the same year, Garayev moved to Moscow State Conservatoire, where he became a student and a good friend of Dmitri Shostakovich. In 1945, Garayev and Jovdat Hajiyev wrote the "Motherland" ("Vətən") opera, for which they were awarded a prestigious Stalin prize. In 1948, at the age of 30, Garayev was again awarded this prize for his symphonic poem "Leyli and Majnun", based on the same-titled famous work of Nizami. 

In 1952, under the direction of the choreograph P.A.Gusev, Garayev's "Seven Beauties" ("Yeddi Gözəl") ballet was staged at the Azerbaijani Theater of Opera and Ballet. Based on Nizami's famous poem, "Seven Beauties"("Yeddi Gözəl") became the first Azerbaijani ballet and opened a new chapter in the history of classical music of Azerbaijan.

 Garayev's only other ballet, "Path of Thunder" ("İldırımlı yollarla"), staged in 1958, was dedicated to racial conflicts in South Africa In the same year, Garayev also wrote the soundtrack for the documentary film "A Story About the Oil Workers of the Caspian Sea", directed by Roman Karmen and set at the Oil Rocks, world's first off-shore drilling town built in 1949 on rigs in the Caspian Sea. Upon the death of Uzeyir Hajibeyli in 1948, Garayev became the Chair of the Union of Composers of Azerbaijan SSR and the rector of Azerbaijan State Conservatoire. 

In the latter position, Garayev retained Hajibeyli's traditional emphasis on Azerbaijani folk music in teaching, and also promoted the contemporary genres, such as jazz, in Azerbaijani music. During his teaching career at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, Garayev prepared a number of prominent Azerbaijani musicians and composers, including Niyazi, Arif Malikov, Khayyam Mirzazadeh and Ismayil Hajibeyov among others. Garayev's own son, Faraj (born 1943) was also his student, who went on to compose single-act ballets such as "Shadows of Gobustan" ("Qobustanın kölgələri") and "Kaleidoscope", and later led the musical avantgarde movement in Azerbaijan.

 In June 1961, amidst the Cold War, Garayev and Tikhon Khrennikov were the only two Soviet composers who attended the First International Los Angeles Music Festival held at UCLA. Fifteen composers from seven nations presented their works, including Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky. On June 11, Franz Waxman conducted the Festival Symphony Orchestra with a suite from Garayev's ballet "Path of Thunder". 

Garayev suffered from heart disease, which prevented him from attending his own 60th jubilee celebration held in Moscow, where he was awarded the title of the Hero of Socialist Labor, a highest recognition award of the Soviet government. Garayev spent the last 5 years of his life in Moscow, away from public, although his love for Baku remained strong and was reflected in his writing: “To me, Baku is the most beautiful city in the world.

 Every morning, when the city wakes whether it be to the sun or the rain and fog, every morning my city sings. Baku is meant for art. It gives me so much pleasure to write about this city no matter if you write music, verse or paint images.” Garayev died on May 13, 1982 in Moscow at the age of 64. His body was flown to Baku and buried at the "Alley of Honor" ("Fəxri Xiyaban") National Cemetery.