NEWS

IDFW Fashion Week 2022 will be held in Los Angeles on October 2. 

The fashion show will be aired via  FNL Network founded by Rocco Leo Gaglioti. 

International Digital Fashion Week unites talented designers from Europe, Asia and US. The fashion show features contest for new fashion designers.

In 2020, representatives of 75 countries took part in IDFW. The fashion week got more than 75 million views, while this year the number of participating countries has reached to 135 with more than 100 million views.

Speaking about  IDFW Fashion Week, Gulnara Khalilova expressed her readiness to represent Azerbaijan such prestigious event. The designer plans to further promote the country at the international platforms.

Her fashion collections "Karabakh" and "Cizgi by Gulnara Khalilova" were successfully presented within the previous IDFW Fashion Weeks.

The fashion designer also  aroused great public interest in the USA, Sweden, Turkey, Russia, China, Austria, Romania, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria and other countries.

The Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater hosts an opera performance "Leyli and Majnun" as part of the 13th Uzeyir Hajibayli International Music Festival.

According to Report, this is the first theatrical performance in Azerbaijan in a pandemic.

The main parts of the show are performed by the laureate of the republican mugam competition Ravana Amiraslanli (Leyli) and the honored artist Elnur Zeynalov (Majnun). Honored artists Tayyar Bayramov (Majnun's father), Jahangir Gurbanov (Nofal), and others also participated in the performance. The opera performance is directed by Honored Art Worker, Presidential Award winner Sevil Hajiyeva.

The audience came to the theater by invitation. They were let in and placed following the rules established by the Task Force under the Cabinet of Ministers against the coronavirus.

Azerbaijan has been invited as a guest country to the 9th St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum.

The delegation led by Culture Minister Anar Karimov will represent the country at the cultural forum on November 11-13.

This status reflects strong intercultural ties and contributes to the strengthening of the cultural partnership. 

Being a guest country, Azerbaijan will delight the festival's guests with its modern culture and traditions. A large-scale cultural program will be presented as part of the festival.

Exposition at Hermitage Museum

The list of significant events includes the grand opening of the country's permanent exposition at the State Hermitage Museum.

The Hermitage Museum is known as one of the world's largest and most prestigious museums.

St. Petersburg's most popular visitor attraction was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired an impressive collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.

The museum's collections include over three million exhibits. In 2020, the Hermitage Museum ranked eleventh on the list of most visited art museums in the world.

Monument to prominent composer

The ceremony of laying the first stone for the monument of prominent national composer Uzeyir Hajibayli will take place in the St. Petersburg square which has been named after the outstanding composer since 2020.

Uzeyir Hajibayli laid the foundation of Azerbaijan's professional music. He was the first composer of an opera in the Islamic world.

The opera "Leyli and Majnun" (1908) is based on traditional folk music and dance, musical genres that relied on oral traditions.

Furthermore, the composer wrote his second opera "Sheikh Sanan", "Rustam and Sohrab", "Asli and Karam", "Shah Abbas" and "Khurshudbanu and Harun" and "Leyli" entirely based on the national folk music elements, primarily mugham.

He also composed three comedies including, "Husband and Wife" (1910), "If not this one, that one" (1911) and "Arshin Mal Alan" (1913).

"Arshin Mal Alan" or "The Cloth Peddler" was the latest and one of the most popular operettas of the eminent composer.

The operetta has been successfully performed in a plethora of languages in over 60 countries of the world, including in the U.S, Austria, France, China, Greece, India, Russia, and Turkey.

The birthday of a national composer is celebrated in Azerbaijan on September 18 as the National Music Day.

Spectacular concert

Fikrat Amirov's ballet "One Thousand and One Nights" will be presented at the Mariinsky Theater.

"One Thousand and One Nights" is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. Known in English as the "Arabian Nights", the work is about Scheherazade, a Sassanid Queen, who tells a series of stories to her husband, King Shahryar in order to delay her execution.

The exciting story of Scheherazade laid the foundation of the ballet of the same name.

The ballet was first staged at the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in 1979.  In 1980, the ballet was awarded the USSR State Prize.

"One Thousand and One Nights" was staged for the first time at the Buryat Opera and Ballet Theater in 1992.

The ballet's new version was premiered as part of the 5th Mariinsky International Far East Festival.

More than 300 costumes with hand embroidery were made for the ballet show directed by Honored Art Worker of Russia Eldar Aliyev.

Azerbaijan's traditional music instruments - tar and naghara were presented to the theater on behalf of the national musicians.

The festival will also feature a jazz concert and film screenings as part of the program.

Notably, the St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum gathers together theater, opera and ballet stars, outstanding directors and musicians, public figures, representatives of authorities, and businessmen on the banks of the Neva River.

The large-scale project includes both a business program for professionals and numerous cultural events.

France and South Korea will also join the forum as guest countries.

Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical “Belfast,” a black-and-white family drama about the Northern Ireland city during the tumult of the late 1960s, on Saturday won the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award, a telling indicator of Academy Awards chances, according to AP.

The festival’s top honor, voted on by festivalgoers at TIFF, is widely viewed as an Oscar harbinger. The previous nine winners have all gone on to secure a best-picture Oscar nomination, as have 13 of the last 14 People’s Choice prizewinners. Those include best-picture winners “12 Years a Slave,” “Green Book” and last year’s pick, Chloé Zhoe’s “Nomadland.”

“Belfast,” which first premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, draws from Branagh’s own childhood in Belfast. The film, which stars Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds, will be released Nov. 12 by Focus Features.

The awards wrapped up a muted Toronto International Film Festival that has unspooled over the past 10 days. Usually one of the world’s most massive movie showcases, this year’s TIFF was a scaled-down pandemic hybrid, taking place in both socially distanced screenings and virtually online. The fall’s other major festivals — in Venice; Telluride, Colorado; and New York — have opted for fully in-person editions.

But it was also a much more robust TIFF than last year’s almost entirely virtual festival. The slate of about 100 feature films was down from Toronto’s typical 250 movies but included many of the fall’s most anticipated films — including Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi spectacle “Dune,” Jane Campion’s Western melodrama “The Power of the Dog” and Pablo Larraín’s Princess Diana biopic “Spencer.” And as of Saturday, only one case of a positive COVID-19 from a festivalgoer was reported by TIFF.

Both “Dune” and “Spencer” didn’t make themselves eligible for the People’s Choice Award, which required both an in-person screening and availability on the festival digital portal. Normally, festival volunteers dispense ballots to moviegoers on their way out of screenings. This year, because of the pandemic, all voting was done online.

In a presentation broadcast in Canada and streamed online globally, other awards included the platform prize — an award chosen by a jury headed by actor Riz Ahmed — going to Indonesian director Kamila Andini’s “Yuni,” a coming-of-age drama about a teenage girl approaching the prospect of an arranged marriage. The festival said the closest competitors to “Belfast” in terms of votes were “The Power of the Dog” (second runner up) and Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson’s “Scarborough” (first runner up), which follows three children over the course of one school year in the Toronto neighborhood.

The People’s Choice award for documentary went to E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “The Rescue,” a non-fiction account of the 2018 mission to rescue the trapped youth soccer team from Thailand’s Tham Luang cave.

National Music Day has been celebrated at YARAT Contemporary Art Space.

Head of the international relations department of the Azerbaijan National Conservatory, curator of art projects, expert of the Culture Ministry on Intangible Cultural Heritage Jahangir Selimkhanov addressed the event.

The musicologist provided insight into the history of the Azerbaijani music and the development of modern music.

The gala concert was a breathtaking adventure into the world of Azerbaijani music and dance, its beauty and grace.

AMAROK Music Group, Ensemble of the Lezghin National Centre Samur", IZ Group, Zeynab Guluzada (vocal), Lala Mehdiyeva (piano), Elshan Tahirov (tar), Aysel Jiyarkhanova (dance), Orkhan Safarli (dance), Vusal Aydamirov (piano), Yagut Khalizada (khananda),Bayram Aliyev (kamancha) and Tarlan Iskandarov (tar).

An extensive music library of Azerbaijani classics was presented in the form of an exciting retrospective, reflecting the depth of the national music history.

The Day of National Music is celebrated in Azerbaijan on September 18 and timed to the birthday of the great national composer, founder of the Azerbaijan national opera Uzeyir Hajibayli. 

The tradition of celebrating the composer's birthday  as a holiday was laid by eminent conductor Niyazi, who used to celebrate this day each year after Uzeyir Hajibayli's death. This tradition continues till nowadays.

Numerous cultural events, including gala concerts and festivals are being held across the country including the international music festival named after the composer.

The 13th Uzeyir Hajibayli International Music Festival kicks off in Shusha, Baku, Ganja and Aghdam.

The festival gathers talented musicians from Azerbaijan, the U.S. and Poland.

The 13th Uzeyir Hajibayli International Music Festival will last until September 24.

Azerbaijan State Philarmonic Hall will host a concert for young talents as part of the 13th Uzeyir Hajibayli International Music Festival on September 23.

The concert titled "Youth echoes of the Uzeyir art" will take place at Chamber Music Hall, bringing together Honored Artist Ilham Nazarov and his students  Subkhan Rustamov, Gunel Binnetli, Adelin Ozturk, Tofig Zeynalov, Kanan Rahmanzade and concertmaster Ilaha Ismayilova.

The evening will feature music pieces by Muslim Magomaye, Alessandro Stradell, Christoph Willibald von Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms and others.

Vaccine passports and special invitations will be needed for entry to the concert.

Ilham Nazarov is the only countertenor in Azerbaijan and the only singer in Azerbaijan having two voices at once - countertenor and baritone. 

As a baritone, he performed at the Azerbaijan State Opera and Ballet Theater playing the part of Nofel (Leila and Majnun), Silvio (Pagliacci), etc.

In 2017, he took part in the 5th International Professional Competition of Young Opera Singers "The Great Opera" in Russia.

The opera singer graduated from the Baku Musical Academy. He completed a three-year internship at the Italian Academia D'Arte Lirica - first as a baritone, and then as a countertenor.

He became the first Azerbaijani vocalist who performed at the Roman Opera House.

In 2020, Ilham Nazarov released a new album "Inspiration" that featured Franz Schubert's "Swan Song" song cycle for voice and piano. 

The music album was recorded at Azerbaijan State Academic Philharmonic Hall and Namiq Zeynalov Record Studio. 

During album recording, Ilham Nazarov was accompanied by a talented pianist, doctoral student of the Baku Musical Academy Gunel Bakirli. 

Ilham Nazarov is the first countertenor in the world to perform a series of works by Franz Schubert.

Azerbaijan has confirmed its participation in Eurovision-2022 to be held in Italy in May next year.

The Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company has not yet announced the country's entry at the song contest.

The Azerbaijan delegation in Eurovision 2022 is led by famous composer and producer Isa Melikov.

Great Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibayli's "Koroghlu" opera has been released on world music platforms such as Apple Music, Spotify, Yandex Music, Tidal, etc.

Honored Artist, famous conductor Ayyub Guliyev, Honored Cultural worker, sound engineer Faig Babayev took part in the project initiated by the director of the Heydar Aliyev Palace Ramil Gasimov.

The main parts in the opera were performed by Honored Artists Ramil Gasimov, Ilaha Afendiyeva, Jahangir Gurbanov, Tural Aghasiyev, People's Artist Ali Askarov and vocalist Taleh Yahyayev.

The Epic of Koroghlu tells about the lives of people, their struggle for justice and freedom.

The storyline is based on a national epic about poor, abused villagers who rise up to defeat their unjust, oppressive khans and beys (landowners) in the 16-17th centuries.

The fight of two opposing forces - the people and feudal forms of governance - forms the dramatic basis of the opera.

The drama shows the mounting fight of the people for liberation from the oppressors and enemies of the motherland.

Based on his story, Hajibayov created the opera in five acts, which has become a true nation's patrimony.

"Koroghlu" opera premiered on April 30, 1937, at the State Opera and Ballet Theater. The opera was conducted by the composer himself. Bulbul and Gulyara Iskandarova performed the main roles in the opera.

Since then, the opera has always gathered a large audience not only in Azerbaijan but also abroad.

The last time the opera" Koroghlu" was recorded in 1959 under the baton of the great maestro Niyazi.

Now, the opera has been released on international platforms to promote Azerbaijani opera art worldwide.

Miss & Mister Grand Azerbaijan beauty contest will be held at Baku Olympic Stadium.

The event will take place at the stadium's VIP area on October 1.

Vaccine passports (two doses), ID card, face mask as well as ticket purchased at iTicket.az, online or at any ticket office will be needed for entry to the final of the beauty contest. 

The winners will be determined by summing the votes of the audience, jury members and organizing committee.

Viewers' votes will be determined by means of İticket, i.e. each ticket corresponds to five votes. 

When buying a ticket you can enter the number, name and surname of your favorite model in the comments section (online or at ant ticket office).

If the  favorite is not determined, then this can be done after the contest at the venue of the final.

The Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles produced a short film in English on renowned Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli - the founder of the first opera and operetta in the Muslim world.

The film mentions that Hajibeyli was born on Sep. 18, 1885 in Azerbaijan's Qarabagh region and was raised in Shusha, the cradle of Azerbaijani music, where he studied Azerbaijani Mugham music.

It is stated that in 1908, then the 23-year old Uzeyir Hajibeyli’s “Leyli and Majnun", the first opera in the Muslim world, was performed in Baku, Azerbaijan, and that in 1913 his operetta "Arshin Mal Alan" (Cloth Peddler) premiered in Baku. It is noted that the operetta advocated for women's rights and emancipation, captivating soon the audiences in many other Muslim countries too.

The film highlights that during Azerbaijan's brief independence in 1918-20, Hajibeyli was one of the strongest champions for Azerbaijan's freedom, and that he composed the newly independent Azerbaijan's national anthem.

In 1920, Hajibeyli established the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, training Azerbaijan's finest composers.

It is stressed that a feature film, based on his "Arshin Mal Alan," was made in 1945 and translated into 86 languages and shown in 136 countries. Colorized by Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the film premiered in Hollywood in 2015. "Arshin Mal Alan" operetta's largest U.S. performance was held in 2013 in Los Angeles. Moreover it is mentioned that the City of Los Angeles proclaimed Sep. 18, 2015 as "Uzeyir Hajibeyli Memorial Day".

The film notes that in 1992, Armenia invaded Hajibeyli's hometown of Shusha, looting and destroying his home museum and statues, and that in 2020, Azerbaijan liberated Shusha and returned Hajibeyli's statues and his home museum is being restored.

In conclusion, the film underlines that Uzeyir Hajibeyli's tremendous legacy lives on in and beyond Azerbaijan.

Considering the importance of short films in the current social media age, the Consulate General has produced 27 short films on different topics about Azerbaijan since 2019. Some of them have been translated into other languages too.