Central Art School to appear in Baku
By Sabina Idayatova
The Central School of Art named after great Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev will be established in Baku in accordance of the decree of the Azerbaijani Cabinet of Ministers.
The Central School of Art will be created on the base of 11 year music school № 8 named after Garayev and will be financed from the state budget allocations for education.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism was instructed to solve the issues arising from the implementation of this decision.
Gara Garayev is one of those great composers who enriched the Azerbaijani music with his immense legacy. Garayev is the author of nearly 110 pieces, including ballets, operas, symphonic and chamber pieces, piano solos, cantatas, songs and marches. Many consider Garayev second next only to Uzeyir Hajibeyov, the father of classical music in Azerbaijan, for his innovation in musical compositions.
Garayev juxtaposed features of mugham with jazz, blues, African music, European counterpoint styles and the 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.
Garayev was one of the only two Soviet composers who attended the first International Los Angeles Music Festival held at UCLA where Franz Waxman conducted the Festival Symphony Orchestra with a suite from Garayev's Path of Thunder.