Kara Karayev
| Gara Garayev Qara Qarayev |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Gara Abulfaz oghlu Garayev |
| Born | February 5, 1918 |
| Origin | Baku, Azerbaijan SSR |
| Died | May 13, 1982 (aged 64) Moscow, USSR |
| Genres | Classical |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, conductor |
| Years active | 44 years |
Gara Abulfaz oghlu Garayev (Azerbaijani: Qara Əbülfəz oğlu Qarayev, February 5, 1918 in Baku – May 13, 1982 in Moscow), also spelled as Qara Qarayev or Kara [Abulfazovich] Karayev, was a prominent Azerbaijani composer of the Soviet period. Garayev wrote nearly 110 musical pieces, including ballets, operas, symphonic and chamber pieces, solos for piano, cantatas, songs, and marches, and rose to prominence not only in Azerbaijan SSR but also in the rest of the Soviet Union and worldwide.
Garayev was born into a family of pediatricians, which was famous in Baku. His mother, Sona, was among the first graduates of the Baku-based school of the Russian Music Society. Garayev's younger brother, Mursal, became a surgeon, but died at an early age.
In 1926, at the age of eight, Gara Garayev first entered the junior music school at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, currently known as the Baku Music Academy. Due to his musical talents, Garayev was allowed to enroll simultaneously in two faculties at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire in 1933. Among his teachers were Georgi Sharoyev, Leonid Rudolf, and the prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov. In 1937, Garayev joined the Union of Composers of Azerbaijan SSR.
In 1938, at the age of twenty, Garayev composed his first musical piece, a cantata "The Song of the Heart" to the poem by Rasul Rza. It was performed in Moscow's Bolshoi Theater in the presence of Joseph Stalin in the same year. Garayev conducted his cantata during the Decade of Azerbaijani Art festival in the Bolshoi Theater, an event also attended by Stalin. In the same year, Garayev moved to the Moscow State Conservatoire, where he became a student and a good friend of Dmitri Shostakovich.
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