Azerbaijan marks National Music Day on the 128th anniversary of acclaimed composer Uzeyir Hajibayli.
Hajibayli's "Leyli and Majnun", the first opera in the Muslim world, composed and performed in 1908, revolutionized Azerbaijani music.
After this opera, contemporary Azerbaijani music embarked on its triumphal ascent, with such creations as "Sheikh Sanan", "Asli and Kerem" and "Shah Ismail" operas, and the "Arshin mal alan" operetta, which were staged in more than 60 countries.
From 1919 to 1920 Hajibeyov served as editor-in-chief for the newspaper Azerbaijan, the main governmental media body of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan.
In 1927, Hajibeyov published Collection of Azerbaijani Folk Songs along with composer Muslim Magomayev. For the first time, more than 300 pieces of Azeri folk music were documented by notation. In 1945, he published the book entitled The Basis of Folk Music in Azerbaijan, which has been translated into several languages including English.
Hajibeyov died of diabetes at the age of 63, and was buried at the Alley of Honor in Baku.
On September 18, 1995 the 110th anniversary of Hajibeyov's birth has been celebrated. No one in the history of modern music in Azerbaijan is recognized for having done more to lay the foundation for Azerbaijani music as it exists today, especially with its unique synthesis of Eastern and Western traditional musical instruments and musical forms.
