The Umsiyat Series 2016 bring the famous Alim Qasimov and his daughter Fargana to Abu Dhabi. The father-daughter  duo exemplify the explosive artistic energy that arises when a powerful musical model ignites the spark of young talent.

Music in Azerbaijan reflects the long history of contact between Turkish and Iranian communities in Transcaucasia, the region lying south of the Caucasus Mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In traditional Azeri music, Turkish elements are felt most strongly in folk song and epic traditions rooted in the countryside, while Iranian influence has shaped urban court music and art song.

Alim Qasimov and his daughter are masters of mugham, the indigenous classical music of Azerbaijan, belonging to a transnational tradition of urban classical or court music that flourished in the great cultural centres of North Africa, the Middle East, West Asia, and Central Asia beginning more than a millennium ago. Mugham and its cognate repertoires are all regionally specific, but still represent what is at root a common musical language.

The joyful spirit of Alim and Fargana Qasimov’s home-spun music making has left its mark on the very form of that music – inparticular, on the exquisitely disciplined balance between memorisation and extemporisation that is an essential part of the art of mugham. Like other traditions of urban court or classical music that span the core Muslim world from Casablanca, Morocco, to Kashgar in western China, mugham is rooted in a system of melodic modes and motifs that provide a framework for both improvised performances and fixed compositions. Following a conventional order, skilled performers sequence pieces in different melodic modes into a suite that may last anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours, blending memorised and extemporised elements to alternate with short, dance-like instrumental compositions. Like no other performer Alim Qasimov is able to awaken the spiritual presence of a mugham suite and at the same time to treat it in a modern and innovative way.

Note: All timings are actual start timings. We recommend guests to come 30 min before the beginning of the concert to find their seats. Doors will close at the start time. No access will be granted after the doors have been shut.

About Alim Qasimov
Alim Qasimov is Azerbaijan’s best known and most beloved singer, hailed by the Guardian newspaper as “one of the most thrilling, unashamedly emotional performers on the planet, and the finest exponent of mugham.”  Mugham is a sophisticated form of sung poetry and music, comparable to the thrilling lines of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s qawwali singing. Qasimov’s appearance with his ensemble at the Barbican in London, UK in 2008 was hailed by the critics – in the words of the Daily Telegraph: “Qasimov and his daughter perform a meditation on the spiritual agonies of unrequited love – the sentiments were as complex as a John Donne poem. Qasimov’s ecstatic vocal lines added an almost unbearable poignancy.” David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet says: “When I first heard him sing, I realised his voice was as unique as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s, or Bessie Smith’s in St Louis Blues. There’s a special quality to that voice, a connection between it and his inner life.”
Alim Qasimov won the UNESCO Music Prize in 1999.

About Fargana Qasimova
Born in 1979, Fargana Qasimova is the daughter of famous mugham singer Alim Qasimov, who she has started to join on tour as early as 1995. Fargana Qasimova’s talent gravitated naturally toward the music she heard from her father: Azerbaijani classical music, known as mugham, and the repertory of popular bardic songs sung by ashiqs – singer-songwriters who accompany themselves on the saz (a strummed long-necked lute). “Music was always just a part of everyday life – I sang with my father for fun, and it was only when I was around seventeen years old that I seriously understood that I’d be a musician,” she said. Despite her many and critically acclaimed performances with her father, Fargana has also started a solo career, with her first album, Yalniz Ona Doghru, being released in 2014.

Venue
Mushrif Central Park, Abu Dhabi

Tickets for Alim Qasimov & Fargana Qasimova with Ensemble – Music Event

Type	Price
VIP	200 AED
Category 1	150 AED
Category 2	100 AED
Category 3	50 AED
Category 3 – Students	30 AED