Music of Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, and its music has gained it the epigraph "cradle of Azerbaijani music." (There is an expression in Azerbaijan, "If you can't sing, you're not from Karabakh.")

Many outstanding Azerbaijani musicians trace their origins to this region. Shusha (1), a small city in the western region of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, has long been considered one of the music centers of Azerbaijan. It is called "the Conservatory of the Caucasus."

The most renowned of the musicians that trace their origins from Nagorno-Karabakh are Uzeyir Hajibeyov (the founder of classical music of Azerbaijan), Badalbeylis, Muslim Magomayev, André and Polad Bul-Bul Oglu.

Uzeyir Hajibeyov is the composer of the first opera in the Muslim world "Leyli and Majnun" (2). He is remembered the most for his famous opera, "Koroglu" (3) (Blind Man's Son, 1937), and his musical comedy "Arshin Mal Alan" (4) (The Cloth Peddler, 1913).