Franghiz Ali-Zadeh

Franghiz Ali-Zadeh comes from Baku in Azerbaijan. In 1999/2000, she spent a year working in Berlin as a DAAD scholarship holder, and since then has divided her time between Germany and Azerbaijan. In November 2000, she was awarded the honorary title "People's Artist of the Republic of Azerbaijan" and in 2008 she was named 'UNESCO Artist for Peace'.

Performers such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, Evelyn Glennie, Ivan Monighetti, David Geringas, Julius Berger, Wu Man, Alexander Ivashkin, Alim Qasimov, Vladimir Tonkha, Elsbeth Moser and many others have championed her music. Ensembles and orchestras from all over the world enthusiastically perform her works.

In a unique way, Ali-Zadeh succeeds in fusing the musical traditions of her home country with modern Western compositional techniques. Her music, so rich in contrasts, reflects lightness and vehemence, playful light-heartedness and brooding thoughts, delicate transparency and strong colours, quiet simplicity and turbulent virtuosity as well as meditation and ecstasy. So, on the one hand, the composer reflects the religious and cultural rift between East and West and national traditions, while on the other hand she translates her own personal tensions into music, tensions that have arisen through the course of her life.

This biography can be reproduced free of charge in concert programs with the following credit: Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes/Sikorski.