“My goal is to achieve greater success and adequately represent our country by introducing Azerbaijani balaban to the world.”
This was stated by 24-year-old balaban singer Anar Velizade in an interview with “Report”.
Our interviewee, originally from Shusha, grew up in a family of musicians. He has been interested in this field since childhood:
“I started with the drum as my first musical instrument. After studying drums at the music school, at the end of the 5 years of music school, I studied at the same music school with the specialty of balaban, and decided to continue my path with the balaban instrument. In 2017 I entered the National Conservatory and participated in concerts and competitions I began to participate.”
A few years ago, the performer who represented Azerbaijan at the competition in the United States, recently achieved the same success in the city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan:
“In 2019, I joined the online competition held in the USA. Frankly, I didn’t expect any response. After a few months, I got a reply that you had won. I felt great pride when I saw the name of Azerbaijan on the stage. In this regard, we were sent to the USA. I was invited. One of the judges of the competition was of Armenian origin. He tried to introduce the balaban as a “duduk”, then I said that I would not go on stage because it is an ancient musical instrument of Azerbaijan. As a result, they introduced it as a balaban and I went on stage.”
A. Valizadeh says that he is very proud to see Azerbaijan’s name on the 1st place in the competition in which more than 50 countries participated, performing at the “Cornegie Hall”, one of the largest stages in the world, located in New York City:
“And these days, in the city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, “Sharq taronalari” (“Sharq taronalari”) At the competition we performed as a group “Simurg”. After a very successful performance, we returned to the country with the Grand Prix award. From now on, my goal is to adequately represent the name of Azerbaijan and achieve worldwide success.”
