Union of Young Musicians of Azerbaijan

Let's review what we have done, what we are to do, and where we are now...

Union of Young Musicians of Azerbaijan is founded in the beginning of December 2008. I can not put the exact date because there was no idea when it should be decided to create a union or executive non-profit group to spread academical music in Azerbaijan, but there are names who contributed in realization by hard attempts to make a concert happen with a modest repertoir which consisted of quite young and inexperienced composers who are Ayaz Gambarli (24), Said Ganiyev (25), Firudin Allahverdi (28), Tahir Ibishov (22), Turker Gasimzadeh (21), and Mohammed Ansari.

Naturally, it has become a belief of the local people that the youth is not capable of bringing variety in activity of society because of the lack of the USSR educational system which left no chance to show the youth’s capability of creativeness and basic role in establishment of strong culture since 1990s. It was not the first attempt to bring the world music to Azerbaijan. Well, I do not want to write down all the history of classical music, then romantic, modern, post-modern and eventually, contemporary music taught, composed, and performed in Azerbaijan since 1930s. There were many proffessional arts organizations which significantly arranged educational renovation in local music that as usually ended with collapse of these organizations. I do not want to question why this process happens this way. Anyways, this group of youth also tried their hard, but this time under the name of “my own sake”.

The first concert was very naïve, and the right one, to see what could the youth do if they had a chance. Hence, the first concert was named - “What is the youth doing?”

We heard many critisizing approach to this event. An effective way to explain to critisizing individuals about non-profitness of this event was, to organize another concert.

Concert Clarinetissimo: Dedicated to a professor of Baku Musical Academy Rasul RASULOV

This was the second attempt to involve crowd in adopting the fact that there is a layer of youth that is not interested in anything else, but migration into World Culture. In another hand, it could be accepted as a new call for a master by whom the students Anar Mamedov, Veli Budagov (both clarinet players) would love to study further, and not stop in the middle of their way to a bigger scene to play W. A. Mozart's Clarinet concert in A major with a proffesional Orchestra.

Unfortunately, the most probable goal of invited honorable and special guests was to check what again the youth was doing without a permission of older proffesionals (according to local custom). The youth was trying to imply the proffesionals to take a look at the hall where they could meet familiar faces only. It said itself about the problem of local Culture in Azerbaijan - the gate of East-West trade and culture, the country of the first eastern Opera, where classical and other academic music became a sort of unwillingly imported article.

Discovering for another time, a trouble in cultural adaptation by local people the goal of UYMA became to influence the people in recognition of World Culture where culture speaks in at least 270 different languages.

A lookahead now is another Azeri-Ukrainian co-operational project which will try to be organized in Baku.

to be continued...