Azerbaijani ashug to perform at international festival in Tehran
By Laman Ismayilova
Azerbaijani ashug Elkhan Jalilov will perform at the international "Ashug Garib" festival in Tehran, Iran.
The festival, organized by Iran Ashugs Union will take place on December 10-11.
The two-day event will bring together ashugs from Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran and Georgia, Azertac reported.
Ashug art is the unique branch of Azerbaijani folk art, which unites poetry and music, professional storytelling, artistic skills, dance, as well as vocal and instrumental performance skills.
The main sources of this kind of art include the art of Turkic ozans who created the prominent literary monument “Book of Dede Gorgud” 1300 years ago, as well as ecstatic acts of early Sufi dervishes who were called “haqq ashiqi” (lovers of Truth) in the Turkic world.
Classical heritage of Azerbaijani ashugs consist of more than 200 songs, 150 dastans (large literary-musical compositions), 1500-2000 poems in different traditional poetic forms (goshma, garayli, tajnis, divani, mukhammas etc.).
Azerbaijani schools of ashug art include Shirvan (eastern), Ganjabasar and Borchaly (western), schools of Iranian (Southern) Azerbaijan – in Tabriz, Qaradag, Urmiya etc.
Despite the regional differences ashugs are united by a common national language, musical repertoire and the saz, an invariable attribute of the Azerbaijani ashugs, which may be accompanied with such musical instruments as balaban, nagara, gosha nagara and gaval. Saz is one of the symbols of the Turkic world.
The instrument got its final shape in the 16th century. It is sounded mainly with plectrum made of cork of cherry tree. In most cases, the arm and sides body of Saz are adorned with pearls. The stringed musical instrument, saz is played solo and in ensembles.
The development of saz playing techniques in the 20th th century led to formation of tan independent field of ashug performance represented by such brilliant musicians as Adalet Nasibov, Azer Maharramov, Neymat Qasimli, Fezail Orujov and others.
The art of Azerbaijani ashugs was included in the UNESCO`s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009, as a symbol of national cultural identity that embodies various artistic spheres practiced by poets, composers, singers or actor-narrators, thus uniting in one artistic expression the communities of the entire country.
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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova
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