Baku, September 18, 2025
Azerbaijan today celebrates National Music Day, dedicated to the birth anniversary of Uzeyir Hajibeyli, the founder of the country’s professional musical art.
Born on September 18, 1885, Hajibeyli is remembered as one of the greatest Azerbaijani composers. Since 2009, an international music festival bearing his name has been held annually to mark the occasion.
Hajibeyli’s opera Leyli and Majnun, based on the poem by the 16th-century poet Muhammad Fuzuli, premiered in Baku on January 12, 1908. It was the first opera not only in Azerbaijan but in the entire East, laying the foundation of national opera. The work was staged at the theater of philanthropist Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, with Guseyngulu Sarabski performing as Majnun and Abdulrahim Farajov in the role of Leyli.
Following its success, Hajibeyli went on to compose other operas such as Sheikh Sanan (1909), Rustam and Sohrab (1910), Shah Abbas and Khurshidbanu, Asli and Karam (1912), and Harun and Leyla (1915).
He also pioneered musical comedy in the East with Husband and Wife, staged in 1910, which became Azerbaijan’s first operetta. His creative legacy includes more than 300 songs, cantatas, fantasies, romances, and choral works.
Hajibeyli composed the national anthems of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Soviet Azerbaijan, and the modern Republic of Azerbaijan. His name remains inseparable from the nation’s cultural identity, and his contributions continue to shape Azerbaijan’s musical tradition.
