Murshud Mammadov

Murshud Mammadov Salim (1929-1996) — Master of Mugam, singer (khananda). The person who scraped his name in thousands of hearts in gold letters and left this world during the blossom of his activities. Murshud Mammadov was born in Muradbayli village in Aghdam district in 1929.

He was interested in music from his childhood and often visited and listened to folk songs and mugams sang by talented singers gathered in Ahmad Aghdamsky’s house who was the great singer and lived in neighborhood with little Murshud. He began to croon and sing in a low voice all these folk songs and mugams performed by these great khanendes and singers.

Murshud Mammadov was a winner of festival of Republic Folk Art in Baku in 1955. Afterwards Seyid Shushinsky recommended him to move to the capital –Baku where he could represent himself and amaze Azerbaijan people with his wonderful burning voice and style of performance. Finally, Murshud Mammadov became the soloist of “AzKonsert” performing within Azerbaijan State Philharmonic.

Murshud Mammadov was a very talented singer (khanende) and a student he studied the secrets of Mugam and ways of Mugam from his teacher Seyid Shushinsky and became a very effective and dignified student, since he gained popularity very soon. Seyid Shushinsky noticed Murshud’s talent and announced him as his successor, maybe this is the reason why he presented him with his “Gold Gaval” that he was presented by his teacher Jabbar Garyagdiogly several years ago.

Murshud Mammadov was the laureate of All-Union Folk art festival held in Moscow in 1958. The master of Mugam taught in Mugam School and trained several students during the last years of hic proud life. He honestly taught the secrets of Mugam to his students with pleasure in order to grow more talented khanendes in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile he tested himself also as an actor on the stage of Opera and Ballet Theatre in Baku and also achieved great success and remained in memoires with his performance as Ibn-Sina and Zeyd in “Leyli and Majnun”.

He dedicated more than 30 years of his life to this art as a master of Migam (Khanende). Murshud M. always valued the art he chose and respected it deeply in his heart and did his best to own the deepest notes of Mugam and teach them to his students, so he gave his sensitive feelings to our Great Mugam for all his life. Now we are proud to say that Murshud Mammadov was the fantastic performer of such Mugams as “Rast”, ”Segah zabul”, ”Gatar”, ”Bayatı Shiraz”, ”Mansuriyya”, ”Karabakh shikastasi”. Currently the Mugams he performed are keeping in Gold Stock of Azerbaijan Republic and within the Karabakh Khanendes album created under the support of UNESCO.