Azernews.Az

By Laman Ismayilova

International Mugham Center invites music lovers to enjoy spectacular concert on November 8 as part of evenings of ashig music. The project aims at promotion of ashig art, part of Azerbaijan's rich musical culture.

Representatives of the Shirvan Ashig school - Evezkhan Khankishiyev, Ali Tapdigoghlu, Agamurad Shirvanly and others will performed at the concert, Trend Life reported. The event is supported by the Azerbaijan Institute of Folklore.

Notably, International Mugham Center implements a number of projects to promote Azerbaijani national music. Among them are such projects as "Mugham Evenings", "Evenings of Ashig Music", "Pearls of Ethnic Music", "Unforgettable", "Evenings of Dastan" and other events.

Ashig art is a music form of oral art formed in folk environment and in terms of impact strength, popularity and uniqueness of maturity, it is an expression having no analogue.

The sources of ashig 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 ashigs 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.).

Schools of Azerbaijan ashig art include large regional art milieus such as Shirvan (eastern), Ganjabasar and Borchaly (western) milieus, and also a number of schools and milieus of Iranian (Southern) Azerbaijan – in Tabriz, Qaradag, Urmiya etc.

Despite the regional differences ashigs are united by a common national language, musical repertoire and the saz, an invariable attribute of the Azerbaijani ashiqs, which may be accompanied with such musical instruments as balaban, naghara, gosha naghara and gaval. Saz is one of the symbols of the Turkic world.

The art of Azerbaijani Ashigs 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.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz