Qarabagh Ensemble

Video - Qarabagh Ensemble - Azerbaijan TV - April 26, 2016 - ATV Azerbaijan

Video - news website - April 2, 2016 - AZERTAG.AZ

Friday, March 18, 2016
Qarabagh Ensemble - 8pm, Russian House
Performing Mugham, the region's indigenous music, Azerbaijan's finest musical export utilizes the tar (a lute), bowed kamancha, and naghara drum in moving from almost Celtic cadences to Middle Eastern music. Bandleader Agil Suleymanov, 23, employs a universal tenor to bridge the language gap, while the modality of the instrumentalism hypnotizes. The quartet's spent time at the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas teaching and performing. – Michael Toland - The Austin Chronicle

April 2, 2015
Jason Gross - Breaking News Music - Video
This Azerbaijan folk quartet looked sedate and almost too professional, but between Agil Suleymanov’s soaring voice and Rustam Muslumov’s wild string bending on long-neck guitar (tar), they made a joyous sound indeed. - The Blot Magazine

March 13, 2015, By Mary Cantrell
Glen Dolfi, the curator of La Peña’s latest art exhibit, is bringing Azerbaijan to Texas.
The multimedia exhibition is a combination of photographs by Azeri photographer Rena Effendi, Azeri music and archival footage shot in Azerbaijan by French filmmaker Vincent Moon and radio-television-film senior Garson Ormiston.
Dolfi said the artists he met during his travels to Azerbaijan captivated him. He knew he had to bring their unrecognized talents to America.
“There are a lot of imaginative, creative people sort of hidden away,” Dolfi said. “Many people here don’t know anything about it.”
Dolfi said the artists come together to represent a poetic voice from a relatively unknown country. The photo series, titled “Liquid Land — Land of Fire,” compiles Effendi’s portraits of Azeri people and images of regional butterflies that Effendi’s father took.
“This is not just a photojournalism project; this is a connection from the area that [Effendi] grew up in,” Dolfi said. “She has this loving connection to her father, his work and photographs that were never published in his lifetime.”
In addition to the photographs, a number of musical artists from Azerbaijan will perform at the gallery during South By Southwest. Qarabagh Ensemble and Qaraqan, who will perform at an official SXSW showcase of artists that perform traditional Mugham folk music, will take part in the exhibit.
In an effort to make the exhibit interactive, Effendi’s printed photographs will hang along the north wall of the gallery and in trees surrounding the gallery — free for the taking.
Dolfi said “Liquid Land” stands out in SXSW’s increasingly commercialized climate. The project seeks to offer personal art that aims to bridge a gap between two communities isolated from one another, according to Dolfi.
“We’re bringing an international exhibit with international music to an international festival,” Dolfi said. “I think it’s a really positive step for the city of Austin and for La Peña to have the vision to bring international art.”
Ormiston filmed Azeri musicians when he traveled the country last summer. His footage will play in the gallery alongside the photographs and music performances. He said the archival footage acts as a window into an unseen world.
“I think it’s more like visual poetry. The way we shot it, it’s like a postcard of Azerbaijan,” Ormiston said. “It’s a way to show the culture, sites and sounds. It’s supposed to give you a sense of what the country’s like in a broad stroke.”
UT’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern studies are co-sponsoring the event. Mary Neuburger, director at the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, said the center supports the effort to inform people about the rich culture of Azerbaijan.
“Exposure to these powerful images connects us to distant realities, like the Azeri one, that both differ dramatically from our own, and yet, in their enduring humanity, are also deeply familiar.” Neuberger said. - The Daily Texan

Video - MagTV Azerbaijan - May 2014 - Interview and performance - Qarabagh Ensemble and 5:59 talk about their recent U.S. trip and merged performances in Austin, Texas. - MagTV Azerbaijan

Welcome to Azerbaijan
By Michael Toland, 8:55AM, Thu. Mar. 19, 2015
Safe bet that the average Yank has never heard of Azerbaijan, a country at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia – surrounded by Russia, Iran, Armenia, and the Caspian Sea. Tonight’s showcase brought not one, but two artists representing the country.

The Qarabagh Ensemble represents Azerbaijan’s traditions by performing Mugham, the region’s indigenous music. Bandleader Agil Suleymanov, 22, is formally trained in it. Utilizing the tar (a lute), the bowed kamancha, and naghara drum, the quartet jumped right in with an instrumental moving from almost Celtic cadences to Middle Eastern music.

The string-slingers engaged in a playful give-and-take universal to bands. Once Suleymanov added his clear tenor, the mesmerizing modality of the songs took on a transcendental aura. Most there didn’t understand the language, but that proved immaterial given the obvious joy inherent in the material. Such clear communication earned the band not only the rapt attention, but an encore.

By contrast, Qaraqan, born Elkhan Zeynalli and a bestselling author in his home country, engages more Western influences, as evidenced by the keyboard, guitar, and black T-shirt. As befits an artist known mainly for writing, Qaraqan rapped, chanted, and occasionally sang his work from paper over austere, often melancholy music. Given the language barrier and a lack of stage presence, his performance never compelled, though songs accompanied by the Qarabagh Ensemble generated some heat.

Though not from Azerbaijan, Diwan Saz still represents cultural traditions – several at once, in fact. Based in Israel, the group consists of Jews, Christians, and Muslims blending Hebrew and Arab musics. A protracted setup plagued by technical issues set the pace, as the band then spent its shortened set doing battle with feedback and recalcitrant monitors.

Even then, the octet’s energy and skill dispersed the cloud of mechanical crap, at least in the audience’s eyes. The high-energy blend of traditional instruments like saz and qanun with fretless bass and dumbek laid down a serious groove under spectacular vocal performances from 14-year-old Muhammad Gadir and Rabbi David Menachem. The crowd ate it up. - The Austin Chronicle

Video - Time Warner Cable News - Sally Zhang video report - March 2014 -
5:59 and Qarabagh Ensemble merged performance and interview at University of Texas. - Time Warner Cable News Austin