Gara Garayev
Gara Garayev was an Azerbaijani Soviet composer, film composer and music teacher. He was born in Baku on February 5, 1918, to pediatrician Abulfaz Garayev and poet Sona Akhundova-Garayeva.
After attending an elementary music school, he studied piano at the Baku Conservatory and then composition with Leonid Rudolf and folk music with Uzeyir Hajibeyov. In 1937, he joined a folklore expedition and studied and recorded ashug songs and mugham. He continued his composition studies at the Moscow Conservatory with Anatoly Alexandrov and Sergei Vasilenko; after studies were interrupted, he returned to Baku and became artistic director of the Azerbaijan Philharmonic. He resumed his studies in 1943 and graduated in 1946, having completed his Second Symphony under Dmitri Shostakovich.
From 1946, Garayev taught at the Baku Conservatory, where he was rector from 1949 to 1952 and became a professor in 1959. His students included Faraj Garayev, Arif Malikov, Frangiz Alizadeh and Polad Bulbuloglu. He also served as artistic director of the Baku Philharmonic and led the music section of the Institute of Arts of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences.
Garayev wrote three operas, three ballets and three symphonies, as well as chamber, instrumental, stage and film music. His early work drew on Azerbaijani folk traditions, which remained important in his music even as he later experimented with more systematic techniques, including twelve-tone writing in his Third Symphony and Violin Concerto. He began composing music for films and theatrical productions in 1950.
Among his best-known works are the ballets Seven Beauties and The Path of Thunder, and the symphonic poem Leyli and Majnun, all connected with the poetry of Nizami Ganjavi. Other works include the opera Homeland, co-written with Javond Hajiyev, the symphonic suite Seven Beauties, and a cycle of 24 piano preludes. He also wrote songs, cantatas, chamber music and scores for numerous films and plays.
Garayev took part in international music festivals and events, including the Warsaw Autumn festival in 1964 and a contemporary music festival in Los Angeles in 1961. He received the Lenin Prize in 1967 for The Path of Thunder, the State Prize of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1965 for his music for Antony and Cleopatra, and the titles People's Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR and People's Artist of the USSR.
Garayev died in Moscow on May 13, 1982. He was buried in the Alley of Honor in Baku.