Riad Mamedov Biography

The window in Baku Riad Mammadova Text: Elena Averina recently I walked along one of the Moscow lanes in the Smolensk region and suddenly saw a gap between the houses from where the embankment was visible. It seemed to me that I was transferred to my childhood Baku, to the Bashmertaba area near the Nizami metro station. It looked like a portal in time and space, a window in Baku - a city of winds, smiles and faithful friends, as a song is sung.

Illustration: Masha Pryanichnikova Riad Mammadov - a famous Azerbaijani musician, pianist. In the year he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, and then two graduate schools with a degree in piano and musicology. As an invited artist, he acted at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theater, led by Theodore Krentzis. In the year he was appointed special musical adviser to the opening ceremony of I European Games in Baku.

He performed at music festivals in Azerbaijan, Russia and Canada. Riad Mammades performs works of a classic repertoire and simultaneously represents the direction of jazz mugam in Russia and the world. I was born and raised next to Azadlyg Avenue - one of the longest in Baku. It begins about the eighth microdistrict and lasts until the boulevard itself. My childhood passed there.

It was in the middle of the X - a very difficult time when there was not even enough necessary things. But, you know, it was one of the most romantic periods of my life. People then flee mainly communication. Neighbors, friends, relatives easily and, as they say, visited each other without a call. The doors did not close, all conventions disappeared. While the fathers and husbands tried to somehow earn money to feed their families, the women gathered together.

For example, we often had a Hajar Hanam neighbor, and this cannot be said “came to visit”: she sat in the kitchen, drank tea and talked about her own. And my mother, my amazing mother, who was then a senior researcher and keeper of the State Picture Gallery Fund, meanwhile, knead the dough or worked. It was very important for them with Hajar Han, to be nearby, because to stay alone in a difficult situation means to crawl into depression.

Of course, in every family and in every house there were problems, quarrels, but I do not remember that during the joint neighboring gatherings the bad was discussed. Conversations were about cinema, music, common friends. People with all their might tried to prove to themselves that everything is fine, that life continues. Often we had dinner with kerosene, because the light was disconnected every now and then.

Our house belonged to the so -called experimental series - in it everything worked only on electricity, without light it was impossible to even boil the kettle. Some thermos were used, we ran to the neighbors for help, and the next time we fled to us. I remember how we got up with my mother by the window and tried to guess in what order the light would appear in neighboring houses: it was disconnected in a checkerboard pattern, and then turned on the same principle.

Sometimes we did not wait, and I went to bed. And he woke up happy, because in the morning there was already electricity. I loved cozy evenings when my relatives and friends drank tea and discussed philosophical topics or conducted some personal conversations.

Kerosinka, you know, has revelations. Such tea drinks dragged on until late, and the next morning, I, not sleeping, went to school. If my mother did not have time to make me a sandwich, she gave a manat so that I bought a bun in the school buffet, it was before the monetary reform, when the manat became equal to the current one. Then, in labor lessons, we studied in the carpentry room, cut out a stands for books and penalties from plywood.

I loved this business very much, and I usually put the money issued on a bun on the jigsaws and saws. But sometimes he went into the buffet. And then one day I came there I remember the smell of mastic, which rubbed the floors mixed with the aroma of fresh baking, handed the money with the buffet and accidentally touched the tray with rolls with his elbow. They fell. The woman said that I should buy three buns at once.

It was terrible: in an instant, all my savings disappeared! Then it seemed that there could simply not be a greater tragedy in life. Each of us was an individual approach, they easily and clearly gave educational material. Now, when I combine the work of the pianist with teaching at the Taneyev Children's Music School in Moscow, I can fully evaluate the amount of knowledge and the degree of professionalism that my first teachers possessed.

The loads in the lyceum were very serious. The school formed me as a person, I am very grateful to my teachers and still cannot understand where they took strength to invest in children. Of course, in Baku energy is in the air - the sun and sea wind can charge anyone. But for the titanic work that our teachers did, more powerful sources of power are needed, and they were in large hearts and honest souls of our teachers.You could always talk to them not only about music, but also about Baku ”, in my opinion, the main thing that made Baku to the city, which everyone loved so much was friendliness and tolerance.

My yard friends were mostly Russian children whose names I can list today, I have not forgotten anyone. Great happiness is to be friends with a person simply because you are interested and good with him, and not because this friendship is beneficial for something. Life in the courtyard proceeded in the most natural way, there were its own rules and installations, sometimes not childishly tough.

They also served as a building material for my personality. I still live according to the rules of my Baku court, in which loyalty, honor and dignity were valued, and I do not consider these qualities outdated. By the age of 11, the yard childhood ended, because my life began to fill my music more and more. Friends shouted out my window, they called to play football, but I stayed at home for the piano, because I had to do it.

They were not strong in football, but they taught good taste and musical skill. This is not to say that I myself chose to engage in hard. The child cannot consciously decide to work hard, instead of playing and having fun. It was the choice of parents: they were creative people and knew very well what work the success was in the field of art. My dad, Tahir Mammadov, is an honored artist of Azerbaijan, mother, Nailya Ismailova - art critic, head of the Department of the Fund in the Azerbaijani State Picture Gallery.

Their friends, excellent musicians, artists, directors, such as Farhad Khalilov, Rustam Ibrahimbekov, aha Ali Ibragimov, or participants of the Guy ensemble, often came to us. In such a beautiful atmosphere, my home lessons took place. A friend of the pope, the pianist, the rector of the Baku Music Academy, the composer and teacher, the People's Artist of the USSR, Professor Farhad Badalbelyi, played a big role in my formation as a musician.

When I was a child, he watched me, followed success, attended my concerts and shared his impressions with dad. It was he who at the right time told him that I should definitely go to the Moscow Conservatory. Then, when I came from Moscow on vacation, we met in the office of Farhad Shamsievich and talked about everything in the world, starting with the symphonism of Mahler and ending with the assortment of the conservatory's buffet.

He was interested in my fate and often held out a helping hand at a difficult time for me and the deeply reserved Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Russia Paul Bulbuloglu. The music school was almost five kilometers from our house, and there was not always the opportunity to use public transport to get there. I walked on foot, but the effort was worth it. After graduating from the Rostropovich school, I continued my studies at the Bulbul school.

There I often heard from the teachers that I was a talented boy, although I did not consider it to be such. I earned such a reputation, because in the first grade I learned and performed one of the parts of the concert of Dmitry Kabalevsky for the piano with a symphony orchestra. I was so small that my legs had not yet reached the piano pedals, but many of those who listened to me then said that I should continue.

And I began to work, work very hard, played a lot of classic concerts. If you recall how often then Mstislav Rostropovich came to Baku, it was a worthy incentive to study the classic repertoire. At some point, along with classical music, a jazz appeared in my life-an amazing genre that opened up new experiences to me. It was fine, I just drowned in a sea of ​​music, even my father’s tape recorder broke when I “shot” that is, I wrote down the concerts that I liked.

Later, life brought me to the great jazzists, my mentors, the People's Artist of Azerbaijan Salman Gambarov and the wonderful master of Jazz by the Jacob Okub. You could always talk with them not only about music, but also about Baku. At that time, I was obsessed with libraries and spent a lot of time in the reading rooms, since in Baku it was all right with them. In books, I found unique worlds and traveled along them, forgetting about reality.

I liked to touch the paper, feel its density, listen to the rustle of pages - this rich “form” in combination with content attracted me to the library as a magnet. Over time, the scientific fiction was replaced by scientific literature, and then, when I entered the second graduate school, I became even more dependent on the libraries: I took up music -know, studied and still study the basics of folk, symphonic and opera music.

In the future, I devoted all my free time, which remained of the performance, I devoted to science, that is, all the same books. Music is a special type of art that connects the earthly coordinate system from heavenly brings man closer to the divine, ideal. To engage in it, you have to abandon a lot, at least the weekend and holidays: the musician simply does not have non -working days.

And you know, I have nothing against this.I love my work more than anything in the world, it inspires me. As well as Baku - a city that is able to reveal the brightest sides of the human soul. Illustration: Masha Pryanichnikova.