Mahmud Salah

Azerbaijani Mugham Music of the Ancient Orient

MAHMUD SALAH
Mahmud Salah is considered as the best ghaval player among contemporaries in Azerbaijan. In 2000 Mahmud Salah founded mugham ensemble Ghadim Sharq.
Mahmoud Salah performed with renowned Azerbaijani traditional musicians singers and instrumentalists. In 1987 he performed with Alim Gasimov at the International Festival in Samarqand where their group was awarded the first prize. In the 90-ies for the series Anthology of Azebaijani traditional music released in France he recorded a few CDs in ensemble with khanendes Agakhan Abdullayev, Janali Akberov, Melek khanim Ayyubova, Gandab Guliyeva. His performance in ensemble with excellent Azerbaijani instrumentalists Malik Mansourov and Aydin Aliyev was also recorded on the CDs released under Buda Musique in 1997 in France.

MAHMUD SALAH
Mahmoud Salah is a great scientist and researcher in the field of traditional music of the East. He works at two prestigious music university of Azerbaijan: at the Azerbaijan National Conservatoire and at the Azerbaijan State Institute of Arts where he teaches qhaval performing to traditional singers (khanendes)
Mahmoud Salah is a reformer of the unique tar (a national string instrument). This tar has deep acoustics and rich polyphonic sound that is comparable with the performance of the orchestra. A tar of Mahmoud Salah can reproduce the sound of seven instruments from the East (tar, canon, setar, santur, oud, sitar, saz).

Ensemble Ghadim Sharq Artistic director Mahmud Salah

MEDA
Ghadim Sharq as one of the best known Azerbaijani ensembles has performing many programs at local and international TV and radio. BBC Three radio 2007 (the First Azeri music performance), SWR2 in 2008, Channel Europe in 2008, Turkish and Azerbaijani channels.

VIDEO
Four documentary films removed about Mahmud Salah and his ensemble Ghadim Sharq. One of them won awards at film festivals in the United States.
Shooting films produced by Azerbaijani and foreign TV channels: In 2002 Turkish channel TRT-2, In 2004 an Azerbaijani private channel "Leader", In 2005 the Azerbaijan State TV & Radio company, In 2007 the famous US Professor of Montana University, Thomas Goltz produced a film about Mahmud Salah and his ensemble Ghadim Sharq when they were in Montana.

2005
Ensemble Ghadim Sharq performs at the International Music Festival Sharq Taronalari in Samarkand

Video of the festival can be found on YouTube request Mahmud Salah

2007
In February there was a concert of the ensemble Ghadim Sharq (artistic director - Mahmud Salah) at the London Brunei Gallerie Theatre Musicians performed at London's BBC radio in the program World Routes *

* Producer Alexander Parkin and host journalist and lecturer of the Department of Asian and African Studies, University of London Lucy Duran (pictured with Mahmoud Salah)

2007
In 2007 Mahmud Salah and his ensemble Ghadim Sharq took part in projekt "Mugam in the U.S. universities" which was supported by the Foundation of Friends of Azerbaijani Culture. The ensemble performed nine concerts at the University of Wisconsin, Montana and California (Los Angeles), performed on Azerbaijani TV channel GYUNAZ TV in Chicago and also at public events in the cities of Livingston, Missoula and Bozeman, Montana. Mahmud Salah and his band were the first Azerbaijani musicians to acquaint the public in the state of Montana with the Azerbaijani music. Local newspapers have written about them, they were shown on the news, and the famous and influential journalist Thomas Goltz produced the documentary film "Mugham in Montana* This film won two prestigious national awards of America in 2009 and 2010.

The film "Mugham in Montana is available on You Tube

2007
In October the ensemble Ghadim Sharq took part in a concert-tour during one month with the support and organization by Klangkosmos Weltmusik in Germany.
About 20 scenes in 18 German cities. All concerts are accompanied by a rough applause.

2008
Music ensemble Ghadim Sharq under the leadership of Mahmud Salah begins to perform with new composition of young virtuosos of Azerbaijan Innovative style of the ensemble is based on traditional principles of mugham. Each musical piece of ensemble is unique and original

2009
At the beginning of this year together with European colleagues created a musical project Mugham Bayati-Gajar. It is an unique project realized in combination of traditional performance along with innovative interpretation of Mugham Bayati-Gajar.

Bayaty-Gajar of Mahmud Salah is performed in classical style but it is so rich in new original artistic details and improvisations with exclusive musical instruments that it is perceived as an innovative composition. There is a demo of project

2009
Performance of the ensemble Ghadim Sharq was in the musical team from Sweden (Aftab Tahami singer) at the International Music Festival Sharq Taronalari in Samarkand

2009
Two CD with music tracks of Mahmud Salah recorded in Azerbaijan

2009
Film Mugham in Montana (directed Thomas Goltz) or The Mystical Music of Mugham comes to Montana won an Award of Merit in the short film, documentary category at the La Jolla Californias 2009 Accolade Film Festival Competition in August 2009. This film is about Mahmud Salah and his ensemble Ghadim Sharq when they were in Montana (April 2007). At the Yosemite International Film Festival 2009 El Capitan Award Winners in the short film competition is film Mystical Music of Mugham comes to Montana Screening of the film Mugham in Montana took place in the States of America

2011
Participation in the International Music Festival Shark Taronalari in Samarkand. Mahmud Salah speech at the conference on Inscription sources on learning inheritance and its importance

2012
In April was released CD in Cambridge as part of the project Azerbaijani Children sing Mugham. In December 2010 recorded music tracks for this disc in Baku.

Razia Sultanova - author of the project

About project: Azerbaijan is the only country in the Muslim world where children are taught to perform Mugham from an early age. Certainly, these are just normal children, however growing up in Azerbaijan - a country with an extreme love of music and a wellestablished music education, they contribute from an early age to the highest form of the native genre of music, the art of Mugham.

2012
In December Mahmud Salah came forward with the lecture in the Third Symposium of the ICTM Study Group for Music of the Turkic Speaking World, Cambridge, UK. Within the framework of symposium was also performance of ensemble Ghadim Sharq

2013
In August was held a solo concert of Mahmud Salah and ensemble Ghadim Sharq in the Rachmaninov Hall of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory

2013
In the 4th of August in the Ethno World (Kaluga region) was held a solo concert of Mahmud Salah and ensemble Ghadim Sharq at the International Music ethno-festival "Way to itself. The team of Azerbaijan performed along with wellknown musicians of the world: Krishna Das, Boris Grebenshikov, Baraka, Afrikanda and others.

2013
In September Mahmud Salah made a report "DAF-ghaval in the holy books and Azerbaijani religious ceremonies" at the II International Scientific Congress "East and West: ethnic identity and traditional musical heritage as a dialogue of civilizations and cultures"

2013
At the close of the II International Scientific Congress Mahmud Salah was inducted into the International Council of the journal PAX SONORIS as a representative of the Republic of Azerbaijan

2013
At the IV International Etnofestival-contest "Voice of the golden steppe - 2013" singer of the ensemble Ghadim Sharq Vugar Tahirov won the first place in the category "solo folk singing" September 7th solo concert of Mahmud Salah and ensemble Ghadim Sharq took place at the Great Hall of the Astrakhan State Conservatory within the ethnofestival.

Contact Ensemble Ghadim Sharq of Mahmud Salah

E-mail: ghadimsharq@gmail.com