Muslim Magometovich Magomaev (1942-2008), Honoured Artist of Russia
Russian news agencies said Soviet-era opera and pop singer Muslim Magomaev has died. He was 66. ITAR-Tass news agency cited his widow Tamara Sinyavskaya as saying he died at his Moscow apartment after a long illness. Other news agencies cite the government as their source. In July, the Azeri news agency APA reported that Magomaev suffered from heart disease.
Magomaev started his career as an opera singer, but, sold millions of albums and concert tickets after switching to popular music. His fame was at its peak in the 1960s and 70s. His grandfather, also named Muslim, was a composer of opera and folk music. Muslim Magometovich Magomaev (born 17 August 1942) was an Azerbaijani baritone operatic and pop singer of the 1960s and 1970s.
Muslim Magomaev represented one of the most respected artistic dynasties in Azerbaijan. His grandfather Muslim Magomaev (1885-1937), a friend and contemporary of the prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov, was one of the founders of Azerbaijani-composed music. Magomaev’s father, Mahammad Magomaev, who died during World War II, was a gifted scenic designer, and his mother was an actress. Muslim learned to play a piano as a child, and began to take lessons from teachers of voice at the age of 14. He finished the piano and composition class of the musical school at Baku Conservatoire, and, then, graduated from the vocal class of Baku conservatoire. As a teenager, he became interested in Italian songs, American jazz, and other styles of popular music.
In 1962, at the age of 20, Magomaev first appeared in Moscow where he performed within the frameworks of the Days of Azerbaijani Culture. He sang two musical pieces in a gala-concert on the USSR’s main stage, the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, and became a celebrity on the spur of the moment. A year later, he gave his first solo concert in the Moscow Tchaikovsky Concert Hall to a full house and became a soloist of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. Muslim earned fame in the USSR as an opera singer with Rossini’s Barber of Seville. He also became known for his arias from Puccini’s Tosca, Hajibeyov’s Koroghlu, and Shah Ismayil, which was composed by his grandfather.
25 October 2008
Pravda.ru
http://english.pravda.ru/russia/history/25-10-2008/106621-Muslim_Magomayev-0 (in English)
