Franghiz Ali-Zadeh

Biography

Franghiz Ali Aga Kïzï Ali-Zadeh (born 28 May 1947) is an Azerbaijani composer and pianist of contemporary classical music. Since 2007, she has been chairperson of the Composers Union of Azerbaijan.
Her music synthesizes Western classical modernist techniques with the Azerbaijani mugham art music. Among her better known works are the chamber piece Gabil Sajahy (1979) for cello and piano, as well as the ballet Empty Cradle (1993); she has also written instrumental, vocal and film music.

Early life and education

Franghiz Ali Aga Kïzï Ali-Zadeh was born on 28 May 1947 in Baku, then in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic of the USSR. Although her family was not particularly musical, her father—an oil engineer—occasionally played the tar, a traditional string instrument of Central Asia. Early in her childhood, Ali-Zadeh developed an interest in music and at age five her family bought a piano. She began composition a few years later, studying the discipline under Adila Huseinzade.
From 1954 to 1965 Ali-Zadeh attended Azerbaijan State Conservatory's youth music school; later she studied composition at the conservatory under Gara Garayev (graduated 1972) and piano under Ulfan Khalilov (graduated 1970). At the conservatory, she became an assistant to Karayev (1970–76) and was later in postgraduate track with him (1974–76). She was awarded the Composers Union of Azerbaijan award in 1980. After becoming an assistant professor there (1976–89), Ali-Zadeh wrote her doctoral dissertation, "Orchestration in Works by Azerbaijani Composers" (1989) for a Doctor of Music. She became a full professor of the conservatory from 1996 onwards.

Career and later life

Through her piano performances, Ali-Zadeh has promoted the music of various contemporary classical composers, particularly Russians. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, she gave the Azerbaijani premieres of compositions by Russian-Soviet composers such as Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Alfred Schnittke, as well as Europeans such as Alban Berg, John Cage, George Crumb, Olivier Messiaen and Arnold Schoenberg. Ali-Zadeh has frequent music festivals of the former USSR and was elected as a member of the Schoenberg Institute of Los Angeles in 1988. She moved to Turkey in 1992. In the late 1990s, she moved to Berlin, Germany, but now spends her time between there and Baku.
Ali-Zadeh became the first women composer-in-residence of the Lucerne Festival in August 1999. She was also composer-in-residence for the Beethoven Orchester of Bonn in both 2001 and 2003. Among her awards are the People's Artiste of Azerbaijan (2008). Since 2008, she has been a UNESCO Artist for Peace, particularly in service of the organization's children's education program. She is also the artistic director of the International World of Mugham Festival.
She has been the chairperson of the Azerbaijan Composers' Union since 2007. At the 11th congress of the union held on 24 January 2025, Ali-Zadeh was re-elected as the chairperson of the union for another 5-year term.

Music

She is best known for her works that combine the musical tradition of the Azerbaijani mugham and 20th century Western compositional techniques, especially those of Arnold Schoenberg and Gara Garayev. This synthesis-style began in the 1970s, before which she primarily engaged with soly Western European modernism.
Among her compositions is the opera Karabakhname (2007). Ali-Zadeh's works were long published by Hans Sikorski, now a part of Boosey & Hawkes.
Her works have been performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Hilary Hahn, among others. The Kronos Quartet in particular have championed her music.