Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

The 5th Gara Garayev International Festival of Contemporary Music to bring together orchestras, bands and soloists from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Austria and Azerbaijan will be held in Baku April 14-19.

According to the festival's website, the event is conceived as a continuation of the existing tradition and only contemporary music will sound at the planned concerts.

Uzeyir Hajibeyli State Symphonic Orchestra conducted by Rauf Abdullayev will open and close the festival. The festival program consists of the world of the 20th century music including works by Garayev, Schoenberg, Respighi, Ligeti, Berio, Shostakovich -- all those who greatly influenced their contemporaries and opened a new way of composers' thinking in the last century.

The festival will also feature a scientific conference at the Museum Center and concerts at the International Mugham Center, the Rashid Behbudov State Song Theatre, the State Philharmonic Hall after Muslim Magomayev and the State Philharmonic`s camera and organ music hall.

Amsterdam Asko Schoenberg, a recognized European leader of the new music performers, and well-known ensemble Accroche Note from Strasbourg will participate in the festival concerts, both with programs including works by Dutch and French composers.

The play "Variete" to the music of unpredictable dreamer Mauricio Kagel will be shown on the stage of the Young Spectator's Theatre. This play is one of the most extravagant of the modern European classics. Such artists as German-Spanish AVA Dance Company, accompanied by contemporary music ensemble of Baku Con tempo, under Ukrainian conductor Vladimir Runchak, will participate in it. German accordionist Eva Zoellern will also take part in the ensemble's performance.

Piano concert programs feature pianist Gulshen Annagiyeva music, a Moscow piano duo of Alexei Lyubimov and Ivan Sokolov, and Dutchman Marcel Worms. The performances are sure to draw the attention of the audience to their non-standard solutions, along with a program by Marianna Vysotskaya, where the Baku musicians will also take part. The festival will devote a special place to new Azerbaijani music.

The art director of the festival is Azerbaijani Honored Art Worker Faraj Garayev.

Azerbaijani music cannot be imagined without the tremendous music of Gara Garayev, whose 95th anniversary was marked in Baku in February.

Gara Garayev is one of those great composers who enriched the Azerbaijani music with his immense legacy. He is the author of nearly 110 pieces, including ballets, operas, symphonic and chamber pieces, piano solos, cantatas, songs and marches.

Garayev juxtaposed features of mugham with jazz, blues, African music, European counterpoint styles and developments related to the 20th century Western music such as the 12-tone technique. His music combines a strict, logical spirit of classicism with a poignant, romantic passion. After years of creating consonant, tonal pieces, he turned to a dissonant style in which the links with folklore became much less obvious, especially in such works as the Third Symphony and Violin Concerto.