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Heydar Aliyev
A bust of Azerbaijan’s First Lady, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva is erected in Canada
The monument to Azerbaijan’s First Lady, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, UNESCO and ISESCO Goodwill Ambassador, MP Mehriban Aliyeva beautifies one of the luxurious places of the city of Niagara-on-the-Lake (first capital of Canada). Days of Azerbaijani Culture and Art in this city was held with great success. Presentation of the International Azerbaijani Mugham Studio took place, and a private artistic exhibition of Omar Eldarov - an academician, Niagara’s Goodwill Ambassador, an eminent sculptor of Azerbaijan - consisting of sculptural portraits was arranged.
Coordinator of the event, professor of the Baku Music Academy Mikail Hajiyev said to AzerTAg that member of the Canadian Parliament Monte Kwinter called the sculptural portrait of Mehriban Aliyeva entitled “Divine Muse – Patroness of Azerbaijani Mugham” made by Omar Eldarov as “a masterpiece of our time’s fine arts”.
Days of Azerbaijani Culture and Art took place within the framework of the International Niagara Festival. Festival’s artistic director Atis Bankas said the revival of the Azerbaijani mugham and its worldwide promotion, as well as efficient development and strengthening of the dialogue of civilizations in the name of peace around the globe, bringing cultures closer and their mutual influence are associated with Mehriban Aliyeva’s name.
Saying “We, representatives of Canadian music culture and Niagara’s state officials, as great fans and experts of the Azerbaijani mugham, think that we have discovered for ourselves, at the end of the Days of Azerbaijani Culture and Art in a rare natural and geographical region like Niagara, the monument to the Divine Muse, a patroness of the Azerbaijani mugham”, Atis Bankas noted also that this beautiful sculptural work by Omar Eldarov was awarded the Grand Prix of the 12th International Niagara Festival “for great mastery and artistic perfection”.
Canada’s fine arts experts have gained the chance to become more closely acquainted with sculptural images of such great geniuses of Azerbaijani music art as Uzeir Hajibeyli, Fikret Amirov, Jovdat Hajiyev, Tofig Gouliyev, Niyazi, Amina Dilbazi, Muslim Magomayev etc. Eminent sculptor Eldar Omarov created these works from granite, marble and bronze, with great mastery and the force of artistic impact. Canada’s exigent experts named Omar Eldarov “Michelangelo of the East”. At the exhibition of sculptural portraits, the portraits of Heydar Aliyev and Ataturk - two leaders of the Turkic world - had their special place.
After Omar Eldarov’s exhibition was over, a concert by Azerbaijani art masters Ramiz Gouliyev, as well as a mugham trio of Ehtiram Huseynov, Sahib Pashazadeh and Jeffrey Verbakh took place at the mugham studio. They performed Azerbaijani popular songs and selected pieces of mugham with true creative diligence. Spectators once more expressed their fascination with the Azerbaijani musicians’ great mastery and perfection of popular music pieces.
The great interest shown by Canada’s cultural society towards Azerbaijani symphonic music and mugham, samples of fine arts and sculpture are an obvious evidence of the Azerbaijani art’s being very popular and there being a need for a spectator, and promotion of the Azerbaijani culture throughout the world as a valuable treasury of the world cultural heritage. The Days of Azerbaijani Culture and Art held within the framework of the International Niagara Music Festival was a part and parcel of the global intercontinental “World’s Rose” cultural project held by the heads of the Niagara International Festival – professor of the Toronto King Conservatoire Atis Bankas and artistic director and chief conductor of “Silkway” Niagara Chamber Orchestra, Honoured Person of Art of Azerbaijan Ismail Hajiyev, supported by the European Union’s Culture Department.
The Days of Azerbaijani Culture and Art started by a ceremony of laying flowers before the bust erected to our people’s national leader Heydar Aliyev in the memorial hall of the Niagara Town Hall’s Court House – the most honourable corner in Niagara – in 2008.
Ismail Hajiyev, one of the organizers of the days of culture and art said: “For us, Heydar Aliyev is not only the greatest state and political person of the 20th century, but also a brilliant symbol of a universal cultural heritage. Eminent persons of culture of the East and West have been friends and associates of Heydar Aliyev. Among the mighty political figures of the 20th century, Heydar Aliyev has made great contribution to creation of permanent cultural dialogue between the East and West in the name of establishing common peace throughout the world”.
Niagara’s governor Gerry Borrow said: “Azerbaijani music, its fine arts, rare ancient mugham have - with their unique artistic beauty and moral perfection, as well as their philosophical content - conquered the hearts of thousands of Canadians and Americans, as well as eminent musicians representing world countries-participants of the Niagara Festival. Here, great moral traditions and achievements of eastern and western civilizations supplement each-other in a form of harmonic synthesis, and are mutually enriched. Therefore, in general, we believe that the way the Azerbaijani culture is moving forward and develop, is the optimum way leading to mutual understanding between peoples, preservation and increasing of all of the world’s colourful culture”.
Exigent and with high teste, Niagara’s spectators, high-ranking guests of the festival – politicians, MPs, cultural figures, eminent modern musicians of Canada, America and other countries listened to every music piece of the concert programme with obvious amusement and met with thunderous applauses, and expressed their feelings with the words “bis”, “bravo”. Works by Uzeir Hajibeyli, W.A.Mozart, Gara Garayev, Fikret Amirov, Tofig Gouliyev, Hasan Rzayev, Vagif Mustafazadeh and Firangiz Alizadeh were presented at the concert. A premiere of “Gabala” symphonic suite by Karam Akbarov, a talented Azerbaijani composer, an apprentice of world-renowned Azerbaijani composer Arif Malikov, took place.
Director of the international Azerbaijani mugham studio in Niagara, professor of Canadian and American universities Richard Osborn said, in his interview to a Canadian television: “The International Days of Azerbaijani Mugham in Niagara was very successful this time! This event has conquered the hearts of not only Canadian spectators, but also numerous guests that came to the Niagara Festival from around the world. After all, Azerbaijani mugham is a great gift of God. It finds a way to every person’s heart as it has such a cosmic potency, such a great secret that people will try to learn this secret as long as the world exists.”
At the end of all events dedicated to Azerbaijani days in Canada, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Canada Farid Shafiyev, MPs Arif Rahimzadeh and Elmira Akhundova, making a speech, expressed their gratitude to the Festival’s management in the person of artistic director of the Festival Atis Bankas, Niagara Region’s governor Lord Gerry Borrow, mayor of the city Niagara-on-the-Lake David Ek, Canadian MP Monte Kwinter for the help and active support provided for holding the days of Azerbaijani Culture and Art in Canada, as well as for the sincerity they had shown towards all the members of the Azerbaijani delegation.
Niagara Region’s governor Lord Gerry Borrow said, in a return speech: “Held with great success in Canada, the Days of Azerbaijani Culture and Art proved a very important fact in such a convincing way that due to great and eminent figures of the Azerbaijani culture - with successful synthesis of eastern and western civilizations - Azerbaijan has become one of the cultural leaders of the world.”
He, wishing to deepen and multilaterally extend mutual cultural relations between Canada and Azerbaijan, said, as the governor of the Niagara Region, he would do whatever is needed to create conditions for promoting Azerbaijan’s music art and culture in Canada and the whole American continent alike.
