FRANGHIZ ALI-ZADEH, Azerbaijan Composer, pianist, doctor of musicology back    Franghiz Ali-Zadeh was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, a centre for teaching Western and traditional music. Most fortunately for the music world, Ms Ali-Zadeh was touched by the call of mugham, a secret language used in the 16th century to disguise emotions discouraged by Islam. This led her to combine traditional Azeri music with modern Western techniques, superbly reflected in her cello and piano duo In Habil’s Style, created in 1979. Franghiz Ali-Zadeh’s activities are far from limited to brilliantly interpreting contemporary piano pieces and composing works of ingenious intricacy. Professor at the Baku Conservatory, she also conducted the choir of the opera house in Mersin, Turkey for three years and subsequently taught at the Mersin Conservatory. She is currently composer-in-residence at the Orchester der Beethovenhalle in Bonn. Her numerous awards and distinctions include: the annual award of the Azerbaijani Composers’ Union in 1980; the title of "Outstanding Artist” by the Azerbaijan SSR in 1990; member of the Friends of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute in Los Angeles; the first woman-composer to be invited to the International Musikwochen in Lucerne in August 1999; and one of the eleven composers invited by Yo-Yo Ma to participate in the "Silk Route” project. Undisputedly one of the leading women composers of today, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh has succeeded in joining East and West in that universal language known and loved as music.   back